The Black Panther Warriors is a 1993 Hong Kong action movie directed by Clarence Fok (Naked Killer), envisioned as a modern-day Wuxia with an Ensemble Cast including Alan Tang "The Student Prince" (Flaming Brothers), 90s wuxia queen Brigitte Lin (The Bride With White Hair), Simon Yam (Full Contact) and Tony Leung Ka-fai.
Black Cougar (Tang) is a swordsman and expert martial artist, once a student of the Cougar order, but have since left his order after failing to save his mentor from being killed. Now a master thief, leading a band of experts and professional badasses, Cougar is recruited to steal a valuable silver box whose contents unveils a shocking revelation of his past. With a powerful enemy long assumed to be dead returning, Cougar and his team, including magician and Death Dealer Blackjack (Simon Yam), military ex-commando and Gun Nut Mang-po Fai (Tony Leung), Cougar's protege, lover and Distaff Counterpart Ching-ching (Brigitte Lin) and dart-expert Madame Rose (Carrie Ng) are in for the battle of their lives.
Loaded with enough action scenes which are as improbable as they are bizarre, overblown special effects, unexplained martial arts techniques, comic book acrobatics, hyper-speed brawling, more than 200 onscreen deaths and logic-defying moments and stunts, the entire movie feel like an anime film coming to life, though its not without the usual "mou lei tao" comedy usually seen in Hong Kong films popular at its time.
This film exhibits the following tropes:
- Amazon Brigade: Besides Ching-ching, there are other Action Girl members on Black Cougar’s team, Madame Rose, Chan-chan, and Enna, all who can kick ass if necessary.
- Badass Crew: Black Cougar and his team of warriors and fighters, who can take down armies of mooks without breaking a sweat.
- Badass in Distress: Cougar briefly gets captured alive by Wolf and is caught in chains, although Chan-chan breaks him out moments later.
- Blinded by the Light: In their final, one-on-one duel, Bloody Wolf manage to temporarily gain the upper hand against Black Cougar, by slashing his sword on the floor, resulting in a massive flashy spark akin to a flash bang that catches Cougar unaware. However, Cougar learned to fight blindfolded beforehand, and quickly gets over his brief disadvantage.
- Boom, Headshot!: Cougar's mentor dies with a bullet in his forehead. Courtesy of Wolf.
- Cool Shades: On most of the characters; Black Cougar, Bloody Wolf, Mang-po, Blackjack, all wears sunglasses throughout the movie.
- Disguised in Drag: Mang-po and Dicky dresses up as women when undercover, the latter which is in a wheelchair pretending to be a baby, with Blackjack tagging along pretending to be a couple with Mang-po. Both Mang-po and Dicky are NOT amused at Blackjack who goes out in regular clothing.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Mang-po is holding a champagne bottle by its cap while watching a beautiful blonde woman undress. The moment the woman sticsk out her leg, Mang-po accidentally squeezes the cap a bit too hard – and a gush of foam bursts out of the bottle.
- The Dragon: Bloody Wolf’s right-hand man, Chu, who is a Mook Lieutenant commanding henchmen and leading attacks, and notably outlasts every member of Wolf’s army except Wolf himself.
- Duel to the Death: The final confrontation between Cougar and Wolf, which is a one-on-one epic confrontation personal to Cougar over Wolf killing their mentor years ago.
- Furo Scene: An early scene with Ching-ching has her flexing herself in her indoor giant tub, complete with Leg Focus and copious amount of Censor Steam. Before a banner exclaiming "Black Panther Seeks You!" suddenly drops down before her, summoning her on the mission.
- Goo Goo Getup: Dicky, the team’s resident computer nerd, somehow gets to dress up as a baby. Complete with pacifiers. And somehow NOBODY on the streets realize anything is amiss, because Rule of Funny I guess?
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: While averted for Cougar, most of the characters in the movie does in fact smoke, heroes or villains alike. The first scene where Mang-po, Blackjack and Madam Rose are waiting for Cougar, ALL three of them are smoking cigarettes, and are actually competing against each other to see how long their cigar will burn without snapping.
- Hellish Copter: In the final battle, when Mang-po easily takes out the first few waves of mooks rushing at the vault's entrance, Chu immediately sics a helicopter which drops henchmen on ziplines. Mang-po simply kills off all the invading mooks and whips out a rocket launcher to blow the helicopter out of the air.
- Improvised Zipline:
- Cougar, during the infiltration onto enemy offices, sneaks into the penthouse using a wire cable he launched from an adjacent building.
- In the final battle, several of Wolf’s mooks descends from their transport helicopter on ziplines, trying to swarm into the vault en masse. Mang-po, guarding the entrance, simply whips out progressively larger guns and mows down those ziplining mooks by the dozens.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Cougar and Wolf lost their mentor in their backstory, which is the reason for the Cougar sect's dissolution. Later on it turns out Wolf is the true perpetrator behind their master's demise.
- Non-Indicative Title: Despite the title, none of the characters have Animal Motifs after the Panther. The protagonist is themed after a Cougar, while the Big Bad is based on a Wolf.
- Once More, with Clarity: In the flashback scene, Black Cougar and Bloody Wolf is fending off assassins trying to kill all three of them. Cougar decides to buy time for Wolf and his master to escape, but as he emerge from the shootout alive, he turns around only to find his master dead and Wolf nowhere in sight. Later into the movie, the truth is revealed with a second flashback; it turns out while Cougar is fending off assassins, Wolf instead betrays and kills Cougar's master and flees, having orchestrated the entire attack.
- Show Some Leg: In his first scene, Mang-po gets seduced by a henchwoman trying to get the drop on him by exposing her leg behind a set of blinds.
- The Siege: The final battle involves Black Cougar and his team, including Blackjack, Ching-ching, and Mang-po, fending off an invasion from Bloody Wolf and a seemingly never-ending stream of enemy mooks trying to force their way into the vault where the Cougar Blade is kept.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Between Those Two Guys, Mang-po and Blackjack, who spends much of the movie bickering with each other but are clearly enjoying it.
- Wire Fu
- Wuxia: A modern-day variant, but with the typical plot elements being touched upon.
