Yet another entertaining and energetic Corey Yuen picture, the director of the previously reviewed Yes Madam! (1985) teams up with prolific actor/stuntman/producer Yuen Biao who stars in the picture along with Cynthia Rothrock.
Rothrock had already starred in Yuen's last picture and had found time to shoot another picture in the meantime. She was originally supposed to play the villain in Jackie Chan's Armour of God (1986) but production was halted and she was sent to Righting Wrongs, another film by the same production company, Golden Harvest. In about five months she managed to complete filming even though she hurt one of her leg ligaments, as I mentioned in my Magic Crystal (1986) review, so she only used her left leg for kicks but you won't really notice any issues with her physique unless you are looking for it, there are, however, some notable fragments where Biao doubles her.
Some alternate titles are Above the Law, Orden de captura, Al borde de la ley, Más fuerte que la ley and it was titled Fight to Win in the Philippines because Rothrock's previous movie, Magic Crystal, was known as Fight to Win in that country.
The film is about Jason (Yuen Biao), a prosecutor who knows martial arts, going after the criminals that killed his mentor and the family of a key witness in cold blood, doing justice by his own hands. Meanwhile, Senior Inspector Cindy Si (Cynthia Rothrock) is assigned the case, so now she must deal with Jason's vigilantism as well as the crime organization that the protagonist is after.
Righting Wrongs is equally fragmentary and filled with deviations that muddle the plot as seen in Yuen's other movies and also most of Hong Kong action cinema, but oddly enough it has probably one of the richest and more cohesive plots out of all of these movies in the sense that the subplots, while numerous and barely organized, are toned down and kept within a certain boundary, never going on for too long and making the story more typical and focused than normal.
Rothrock is perhaps doing some of her best work here, the stunts could either go from perfectly comedic to amazingly badass, sometimes they are both at the same time. Her fight against a female goon is a highlight that's hard to top.
The company wanted another female martial artist to play a henchwoman that fights against Cynthia Rothrock near the end, so she recommended Karen Sheperd (America 3000, Terminator Woman, Cyborg 2, V.I.P) but Karen did justice to her name and demanded changes to the script, she wanted her character to live and wanted a scene where she kills a child to be modified, fearing these details would ruin her reputation. Of course this would mess with the actual story so Yuen simply pretended to shoot her changes and used a stand-in for her later on to shoot the actual sequences as previously planned.
The film has about four different endings, the original one is raw and impactful while the one used in the American version is a safer one. The original bittersweet ending was so disheartening to audiences that Rothrock had to stop filming China O'Brien (1990) to come back and shoot a happier conclusion to the story.
Regardless, this is one of the few movies where the destiny of the heroine is genuinely uncertain, I am just gonna say that nobody here is safe, usually action movies are predictable because you know the main characters must live to kick ass another day but this doesn't truly apply in Yuen's movies as he is always coming up with a curveball that, while at first shocking, ends up being a memorable and bold move to keep you on your toes. The ending of Yes Madam was everything but generic and this film's climax is also just as subversive.
But don't worry, even when Yuen gives you some rather appalling or cold moments of pessimism, he still reverts it back to an ending where justice is served. Never nihilistic but also never squeaky clean, a good balance that makes his storytelling more effective when he pulls the right strings.
Fun as hell, with a lighting fast pace and hilarious gags, Righting Wrongs is among the top tier Yuen 80's flicks only rivaled by Yes Madam, which I found more engaging because of its rather simplistic plot construction. However, this is a movie that has to be seen if you are a Cynthia Rothrock fan or if you want to see some of her more impressive fights in her Hong Kong days. It may be a bit routinary when she's off screen but its more memorable scenes are more than worth it.
The virtues I mentioned in my Yes Madam review can also be found in this picture, so check it out!
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