Bait and switch

The strange English title is an archaic word for "female warrior" (apparently with no modern replacement), while the Chinese translates literally to "rouge tiger".

But, despite the title, the scenes Loretta Yang appears in form no more than 30 minutes of the film, and she does not appear at all in the first 15 minutes. Instead, it's left to Lee Shao-Fei to rein in the testosterone by playing a smug baby-faced hero, skilled at ducking punches long before they're thrown and dodging kicks that come nowhere near him.

With no subtitles and a ton of double-crossing characters, making out the plot is a challenge. Actually, seems like two distinct movies - a gangster tale and a female ninja flick - shoddily patched togther. But for viewers that are watching for the "rouge tiger", the main story is that Lee's skills get him in good with a gang boss, who makes him his right-hand man. But as anyone standing next to Lee seems to be at risk of impromptu street surgery by anonymous surgeons, it starts to look like he's landed smack into a gang war. Fortunately for viewers, the latest patient has a daughter played by Loretta Yang, thus ensuring a show of female vengeance - minus the gruesome gang rape scene.

Though some of the gangster killings are rather nasty, the female action is mostly played for fun (kinda like a 007 flick). As in Woman Revenger/Nude Body Case in Tokyo (女性的復仇), Loretta again leads the icon of Taiwan Black Movies - a team of bikini-clad assassins - but this time repeatedly executing bizarre elaborate plots to kill one clueless clown - yet repeatedly failing miserably (kinda like a Wile E. Coyote flick).

Best viewed as a teaser for Seven Black Heroines (紅粉兵團), which opens with Loretta doing another version of this gambling scene.