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Film / Fire Phoenix

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I'm assuming Sibelle is the Phoenix.

Fire Phoenix is a 1990 Hong Kong action movie starring Sibelle Hu, Alex Man and Alex Fong in a relatively small role.

A Brother–Sister Team consisting of Letty (Sibelle) and Ray (Francis Ng) sent on a dangerous extraction mission ends up being stuck with Jenny, a mobster's girlfriend, after a mission in the jungles of South-East Asia with all of the mercenaries on their team, including their employer's contact, dead. Forcefully escorting Jenny all the way from South-East Asia to Hong Kong to be delivered back to their employer, somehow they both end up being targeted by killers sent by the mob.


Fire Phoenix contains the following tropes:

  • Abnormal Ammo: In the final fight scene, Jenny ends up wielding an umbrella equipped with... an ink shooter. Which she used to blast an Elite Mook in his face, distracting him long enough for Ray to take him down. But only for a few seconds.
  • Action Girl: Letty, played by Sibelle Hu, who predictably gets to take plenty of names in multiple shootouts.
  • Affably Evil: Kwok Kuan-tian, the Big Bad of the movie, is charming, polite, smiles often, and will ruthlessly order his minions to murder anyone who knows he's behind the mob assassinations. Being played by the charismatic Alex Man and all that.
  • Brother–Sister Team: Letty and her brother Ray, the protagonists of the movie.
  • Boyish Short Hair: Letty, in Sibelle Hu's usual style. This one is no exception.
  • Car Bomb: After Letty and Ray managed to retrieve Jenny from the guerrilla and send her back to Hong Kong, their employer, Kwok, try to kill them by booby-trapping their car with a bomb. It doesn't work, a convenient moment of hesitation and both of them are not on their car yet as it blows up.
  • Girls with Guns: Letty, either shooting up guerrillas with machine guns, or gunning down mobsters in the mansion shootout.
  • Groin Attack: A Running Gag in the movie; in several scenes Ray would try to restrain Jenny, only for her to lash out and hit his dicky. And there's nothing he can do about it, since he's not supposed to hurt her in any way while delivering her back. Firstly in the aftermath of the guerrilla camp raid, and then when Letty and Ray managed to get Jenny back to their own apartment, and later during the chase scene.
    Ray: (complaining to Letty) "She got me in the privates. I wonder if I can still have kids someday?"
  • Improbable Weapon User: Parodied in the scene when Jenny gets confronted by an Elite Mook, an expert fighter, while she's exiting from a toilet. She uses a plunger to defend herself, and promptly gets her ass kicked. She then escapes into the kitchen, grabs a spatula and saucepan lid, and tries to fight, with predictable results.
  • Jungle Warfare: The guerrilla camp raid that takes up most of the second act, a rather random action scene seemingly lifted from some Chuck Norris movie.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: The movie seemingly ends with Kwok completely escaping the main characters, getting on board his helicopter and taking off, at which point everyone decides to just let him go. And then a freeze-frame and a line of text onscreen states that because he forgot to refuel his helicopter, he ends up crashing in the Bermuda Triangle later that day. The end!
  • Killed Offscreen: Kwok, seemingly. His death isn't shown onscreen (a rarity for an action movie, considering the amount of deaths all over) but then a line of text states his escape helicopter crashed later that day.
  • Manchild: The villain, Kwok, who often had childish temper outbursts, tends to joke a bit too much, act generally like a buffoon and carry a comic book around, which he stops to read in the middle of a shootout.
  • Match Cut: During the final shootout, Kwok, for some reason, decides to read a comic book while a fight scene between Ray and Letty and his goons are happening in the background. Bafflingly, the movie then intersects randomly between his comic book, and the fight that is happening, so whenever Letty lands a punch or kick the scene will cut to a panel on the comic featuring people getting hit in a similar pose.
  • More Dakka: IN the jungle raid, Ray, hauling a belt-fed machine gun but having been separated from the rest of his mercenary team, ends up stuck in a corner of the base and having four guerrillas coming towards him. He then responds by loading the machine gun and using it to ambush the guerrillas, firing for at least thirty seconds even though all four of his targets are shot dead.
  • Non-Action Guy: Subverted with Letty's younger brother, Ray, who usually acts as her contact and information broker. During the jungle shootout he spends most of the movie hauling a belt-fed heavy machine-gun on his back, but when he gets cornered by four guerillas, he starts using the machine-gun, and he turns out to be an actually rather capable marksman.
  • Redshirt Army: The mercenaries accompanying Ray and Letty in the jungle action scene. They did relatively well on their own despite being outnumbered, managing to even kill off a large chunk of the guerrillas, but by the end of the scene all of them are dead, leaving Letty and Ray stuck with Jenny.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: Letty's preferred backup weapon, which she uses in the mansion shootout with deadly accuracy. Note that none of the mooks shooting at her are using revolvers, most of them are using regular Glock-type pistols.
  • Sinister Shades: The Caucasian elite fighter (played by Mark Houghton) who wears sunglasses in every fight scene he's in. Kwok had sunglasses on in the final action scene too.
  • The Squadette: During the jungle raid, Letty is the only female member of the Strike Force, and gets to wear military fatigues when kicking ass all over the place.

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