Making daddy proud. By killing 30 bad guys. Simple, right?
Enter the Eagles, also known as And Now You're Dead, is a 1998 Girls with Guns action film directed by Corey Yuen, starring Michael Wong, Jordan Chan, and Shannon Lee - daughter of Bruce Lee - in her first leading role.
Professional thief Martin is hired to steal the Czar's Prism, the largest diamond in Europe kept in a Prague Art Museum. Getting his protege, Mandy, they are forced to work alongside a pair of small-time crooks, Tommy and Lucy, but when their superior Karloff have them double-crossed, Martin and Mandy will have to fight their way out.
Enter the Eagles contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Mandy, played by Shannon Lee. She can fight, shoot, perform all kinds of stunts, and takes plenty of names throughout the film.
- Actor Allusion: Michael Wong, who plays Martin, previously stars in Legacy of Rage alongside Shannon Lee's brother, Brandon Lee.
- Badass Biker: During the stakeout shootout, Mandy gets to kick ass while zooming all over the place on a motorcycle, firing a pistol one-handed and using that to take down multiple mooks.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Used by Lucy, when she infiltrates the art museum by pretending to apply for a job as a cleaner, only to realize there are a dozen other budding applicants in line. She immediately announces that she is the head supervisor of the cleaners and that all cleaners are required to speak Chinese Mandarin, citing the increasing number of Chinese tourists as a reason, resulting in the other applicants (being European) leaving while complaining they were never told beforehand about the need of being bilingual. By the time the actual head cleaner shows up, Lucy is the only applicant present.
- Boyish Short Hair: On Mandy.
- Briefcase Full of Money: Used by Karloff to pay off Hussein. It also contains two bundles of C4.
- Bulletproof Vest: Inverted; Tommy tells Lucy to make a run for it as he uses himself as a distraction, claiming that he's got a vest on and he will be safe. Moments later, Tommy ultimately succumbs from being shot thrice. His answer?Tommy: " I am the vest..." ( dies)
- The Caper: The crew after the giant Prague Diamond, consisting of mercenaries Martin and Mandy, and small-time thieves Lucy and Tommy. It obviously leads to a Double Caper when their employer, Karloff, double-crosses them after the heist.
- Cold Sniper: Mandy during the stake-out, backing up Martin from an overhead ledge via Sniper Rifle.
- Combat Parkour: Mandy in many fight scenes, notably when she first met Lucy and challenged Lucy to "hit her if she can".
- Cool Airship: The climatic final battle takes place aboard Karloff's zappelin about to take off, and it lifts off just as Martin is struggling with Karloff on its lower carriage.
- Cool Shades: Worn by most characters, notably Martin and Mandy in their first scene. Mandy gets to wear her sunglasses more than Martin though.
- Girls with Guns: Mandy, whose Improbable Aiming Skills allows her to take names with ease using a pistol. By the end of the movie Lucy also Took a Level in Badass and backs up Mandy with a machine-gun.
- Groin Attack: Mandy does a low-angled nutshot on Karloff in their ending brawl.
- Guns Akimbo: Martin uses dual pistols in the final shootout against Karloff and his mooks.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Mandy's default outfit, her black leather jacket, complete with matching leather boots, which she is never seen without.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In the farmhouse fight, Mandy kills a mook by knocking him into the blades of a thresher.
- Knee-capping: Martin takes out several Prague policemen while sliding across the floor by shooting their legs and knees, to subdue them non-fatally.
- The Lost Lenore: Martin's Old Flame and lover, Ruth, a Posthumous Character who died in Martin's backstory and only shows up in a flashback scene. Moments before Martin's death at the end, the last thing he sees is Ruth waiting for him so they can be together at last.
- Man Bites Man: In the final fight, Mandy subdues Karloff momentarily by biting his ankles.
- Man on Fire: An unfortunate mook suffers this fate when Mandy shoots him off a low-hanging ledge, causing him to fall on a burning car.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Played straight. While faceless male mooks getting killed left and right in action movies like this one is nothing new, however among the main characters Martin and Tommy both fails to outlive the credits, while Mandy and Lucy survives.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Martin, Mandy's superior and teacher who taught her everything she knows about kicking ass, dies at the end of the film.
- Mexican Standoff: Halfway through the film, between Mandy, Martin, Karloff, and Karloff's henchmen.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Martin does an impressive leap from a helicopter in this manner halfway through the film.
- Mortal Wound Reveal: After a massive shootout on the streets of Prague, Mandy, Lucy and Tommy seemingly made it into a passing train unharmed... until Tommy pulls up his shirt, revealing three bullet wounds.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: During the farmhouse fight, Mandy totally loses her cool when a henchmen missed a swing at her with a scythe, but cuts off a bit of her hair.Mandy: "I just had my hair done." (rips out the mook's hair)
- Non-Action Guy: Tommy is the only named male character who didn't get to fight or take names in the film. Despite the fact that Jordan Chan is capable of kicking ass, as seen in the Young and Dangerous movies or Hot War, released the same year.
- One-Man Army: While Martin and Mandy usually kicks ass side-by-side, they have no issues taking on massive numbers of mooks alone and winning. Especially evident when Martin goes off to confront Karloff all by himself in the end without informing Mandy - when Mandy and Lucy arrives at Karloff's hideout, first thing they see is a pile of dead bodies outside the hideout, a sign that Martin has arrived.
- Precision Crash: Mandy takes out one of Karloff's lieutenants in this manner by causing a swinging frame to smash him into a fusebox. He gets electrocuted, but somehow gets better.
- Shout-Out: The film's title itself is a reference to Enter the Dragon, the martial arts classic starring Bruce Lee, father of Shannon Lee who plays Mandy in this film. Additionally, Mandy during her fights rubs on her nose before kicking ass, and does a jeet-kwun-doe pose not too different from her dad multiple times in the film.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Tommy, the Plucky Comic Relief character, dies in a shootout that climaxes the film's second act, just as the film is reaching its more serious climatic final scene.
- Super Window Jump: Mandy, Lucy and Tommy had to jump out from the sixth floor of a building to avoid being caught by Karloff's thugs. Mandy gets out with ease, but had to go back and forth to coax Lucy and Tommy, both whom are afraid, to jump.
- Taking You with Me: The final battle culminates with Martin blowing up himself with Karloff, by shoving an exposed wire into the helium source on Karloff's ship resulting in its explosion.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Between Martin and Mandy (a pair of ruthless mercs and killers), and Lucy and Tommy (a married couple whom are small-time crooks and art thieves). They eventually got their act together after realizing they're double-crossed by Karloff.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mandy and Lucy, in that order. The former is a mercenary, sharp-shooter, assassin and ass-kicker, while the latter is an art thief and non-combatant who's afraid of guns, and assists in the hest by posing as a cleaning maid while Mandy gets to kick all the ass. But still...
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Mandy may be a brute, but she still cares about her hairdo, getting pissed off when a mook accidentally cuts some of her hair with a sickle during a fight.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Lucy, by the end of the movie, finally got over her fear of firearms and can take names with a machine-gun.
