Asian Cult Cinema: Worldwide Exploitation Films and DVDs

Widow Warriors (1988) Elizabeth Lee & Michiko Nishiwaki

4426DVD

original Hong Kong title HU DANNU ER HONG [Crimson Women]

director: Wong Lung Wai
starring: Elizabeth Lee Mei-Fung · Winnie Law · Michiko Nishiwaki · Kara Wai · Tien Niu

The men in a gangster family are betrayed and gunned down by a rival Triad gang. The surviving spouses – from the matriarch to the youngest – decide to get revenge rather than mourn their loss. They organize a robbery and war against their enemy. The story is uncomfortably familiar. It serves as the uncredited plot for director Steve McQueen's 2018 Mafia thriller Widows, which was officially based on a British television series of the same name some years earlier.

The filmmaker here is Wong Lung Wai (better known as Johnny Wang Lung-Wei) who starred in 100+ martial arts | action movies between 1970-2000, usually playing the villain (in DIRTY HO, CHINATOWN KID and, later, RUN AND KILL). As a director, he helmed considerably fewer films. His last project before retiring was the cult favorite ESCAPE FROM THE BROTHEL.

Lead actress Elizabeth Lee (born in Hong Kong 1963 as Lee Mei-Fung) came to the movies after winning Miss Hong Kong 1987. She is best known for her starring roles opposite Anthony Wong in UNDERGROUND BANKER and LOVE TO KILL. Michiko Nishiwaki moved from Japan to HK in 1987 and made this film a short time later. She spent the next five years mostly in the Hong Kong fighting diva genre (ANGEL TERMINATORS, BIG CIRCLE BLUES and THE AVENGING QUARTET) but is best know to cult fans for PASSIONATE KILLING IN A DREAM and FATAL SEDUCTION, her final film before moving to the States in 1994.

A Hong Kong film, Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles; widescreen uncut (93 min.);
for ALL REGIONS, playable on any American DVD machine.
Extras include selected trailers.

Graphic Violence/Sexual Brutality
Recommended for Mature Audiences

$19.95