The Inspector Wears Skirts

Despite staging a comeback in terms of fashion, music and film, the ‘80s had an anything goes personality that’s impossible to recreate.  Country music, hair metal and power ballads mingled comfortably together on Top 40 radio, and while no one would ever label the decade as open minded there was more wiggle room for films to drift out of their genre.  In the world of Hong Kong cinema, always quick to bend with a new trend, that’s never more obvious than in 1988’s The Inspector Wears Skirts, the first entry in what would become a four-film series that was a progenitor of the Girls with Guns wave of the ‘90s. 

After an international incident exposes a need for more women on the force, Hong Kong officials create the SKIRT squad, selecting two dozen female candidates to train under the guidance of Madam Wu (Sibelle Hu) and Madam Law (Cynthia Rothrock).  But their biggest challenge is getting a leg up on their male counterparts, a troupe of goofball misogynists out to prove their physical – and romantic – superiority.  Those differences must be put aside, however, when a jewel heist puts both teams in jeopardy.

 

A bizarre hodgepodge of Police Academy­-style comedy and traditional Hong Kong action (Jackie Chan served and producer and lent his stunt team), The Inspector Wears Skirts is all over the place.  Director Wellson Chin bookends the film with two stunt-heavy heist scenes, but the main focus is its corny battle-of-the-sexes that pairs off each character with a romantic sparring partner.  Sandra Ng steals most of the screen time as the loudmouth comic relief but even she takes a backseat to a spontaneously choreographed musical sequence - performed on roller skates no less!

 

By way of comparison, Skirts feels like a goofball ‘80s comedy whose first and second reel were swapped out with a Steven Seagal film.  But there really is no comparison; it’s simply one of those Hong Kong oddities that defies categorization.  And yet it’s never boring, jumping from one gag to another with enough charm and wit to make you forget that Cynthia Rothrock only shows up for maybe 15 minutes of screen time.  

 

88 Films delivers another handsome package that includes an audio commentary, interviews with Rothrock and director Wellson Chin, English opening and closing credits plus a set of spot-on liner notes and fold-out poster.

 

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