The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 & 4

 If you’ve made it this far in The Inspector Wears Skirts franchise you’ve likely already been sold on the odd combination of physical comedy, blood squibs and boob jokes.  An only-in-Hong-Kong amalgamation of Police Academy hijinks and early ‘90s action, director Wellson Chin doesn’t deviate from the formula much in these next two installments; but he certainly perfects it to the point where new members of the SKIRT squad are easily swapped in for old pros.


TIWS3: Raid on Royal Casino Marine begins with the usual training camp shenanigans, but with Inspector Kan (Stanley Fung) now in charge after his marriage to former SKIRT leader Madame Wu (Sibelle Hu).  The squad is tasked with going undercover aboard a gambling cruise to sort out who’s responsible for the theft of missing police weaponry.

 

A sort of passing of the torch entry, this one gives Sandra Ng the biggest spotlight in the series.  Her comic relief character, Amy, is still -inexplicably - the butt of every fat joke but Ng leans into the role with enthusiasm, completely stealing the show during a high-stakes gambling scene in which her particular set of skills turn the odds in her favor.  There’s a bit of gunplay and a few punches thrown, but Chin keeps this one comfortably in the comedy section.



 Things look a bit different in TIWS4, with Cynthia Khan cast as a one-woman supercop whose training and technology might just put the SKIRTs out of business.  Instead, the new recruits track down previous members (including Amy, now a single mom) to help save the squad’s reputation and thwart a high-profile kidnapping.

 

With martial artist Khan now part of the crew, Chin doubles-down on the action elements, staging some impressive fight scenes that are as good as anything else in the HK canon at the time.  There’s even a little Home Alone sequence as Amy’s son outsmarts the kidnappers with elaborate traps.  At this point, the SKIRTSfranchise was a well-oiled machine.  So, as the last film in the series, everyone involved got the rare opportunity to go out on top.

 

88 Films finally releases these last two titles in the same fine fashion as the previous two entries, both looking incredible in 2K remasters, both sporting audio commentaries, new reversible artwork and a fold-out poster.

 

 

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