THE ASIAN VALUES DVD REVIEW

Shaw sexpot Chen Ping might be remembered for her roles as a mamasan with a heart of gold but three movies put her squarely in the limelight - Kiss Of Death, Big Bad Sis and The Sexy Killer (aka The Drug Connection, 1976).

While Kiss Of Death has a realistic/New Wave feel, Sun Chung's The Sexy Killer, modelled after Pam Grier's 1973 Coffy, is too studio-bound to really take flight. But that doesn't mean that this is a sedate outting. The film opens at a nightclub with various couples taking drugs (much like an opium den of old), some in various stages of undress. Chen Ping's kid sister is among the drug addicts and is willing to do anything for pusher Tin Ching, who in no time not only strips the drug-addled girl but ends up pumping her (in all sense of the word).

Unfortunately, the young girl overdoses (on the drug, not the sex), loses her mind and ends up in the psychiatric ward undergoing cold turkey. Big sister Chen Ping is mad as hell and won't take it anymore, especially since her police friend, Yueh Hua, even if he's nicknamed Drug Smasher, is no help at all. But then we're talking about the Triads here, so what can a kucing kurap (small fry) cop do, especially when his partner is on the payroll?


Chan Shen (top)... when the henchman gets more than he
bargained for.

Chen, who works as a nurse, decides to take matters into her own hands. She turns into a vigilante. The first pushers to fall provide the template for the film. She gets the guys interested in her body; even going as far as stripping to lure them; and kills them when they least suspect it. Her initial encounter is a mixture of bravado and good luck and she emerges from it unhurt and her enthusiasm undampened.

In the meantime, she befriends politician Antonio Ho Sze Wei but one night Yueh comes to Ho's apartment after receiving news that a shipment of drugs was scheduled to arrive there. The big boss (played by an over-the-top Wang Hsia who is also into leather whips and S&M) wants to teach Yueh a lesson and has him beaten up.

Never relying on the police to get anything done, Chen befriends Tin on her own and is introduced to bossman Wang. During their intimate moment together, Chen tries to kill Wang with her dagger but is subdued and ordered to be killed. She gets the better of henchman Chan Shen who tries to rape her and returns to exact revenge on Wang. In an explosive climax, she smashes the car she's driving into the house, gets to the gun cabin; takes out the shotgun and blasts everyone to hell. And that's not all. She then drives over to Antonio Ho's apartment and shoots the hell out of him after learning that he was in cahoots with Wang all along.

And being a Shaw movie, the prissy Yueh turns up and gives a moralistic spiel about working with the police to which Chen just holds up her arms as if to say, "Why don't you shut the **** up and just lock me up!"

While many movie-goers might feel that Chen Ping did some of her best work on her back, no one will be disappointed here - after all, she's the main draw and purpose of this film. Like Big Bad Sis, Chen is involved in a topless fight (she's the topless one this time) that's already worth the price of admission and the rest of the film is peppered with enough nudity (mainly topless) and by-now de rigeur action sequences that is very much a Shaw staple. Just don't ask how a nice young nurse knows not only kung fu but to handle a shotgun with ease.

Note: The Sexy Killer DVD (IVL/Celestial) is banned in $ingapore.