bensonmum2 Trying to come up with a pithy plot description for something like The Heroic Trio is all but impossible. The plot simply cannot be explained in a few short sentences. So I'll go with a very general plot description realizing I'm leaving a lot out – An evil demon is kidnapping male babies in hopes of finding the next Emperor of China. He hopes to use that baby to help him take over the world. Three competing female super heroes must put aside their differences and work together to defeat the demon.The Heroic Trio is like a comic book come to life. It has an almost dreamlike feel to much of it mixing elements of fantasy in places I hadn't expected. In fact, I was shocked to discover it's probably more fantasy than martial arts. It's quite an unusual narrative style that, as a Westerner, I'm not overly familiar with. Fortunately, I was able to just go with it and enjoy it. It's not too difficult though as director Johnny To filled The Heroic Trio with some amazing images. The flying motorcycle at the train station, the first descent into the underworld, and Michelle Yeoh's dance with the demon are incredibly unique and memorable. Visually, the movie is stunning.All three of the lead actresses – Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Cheung – are perfect in their roles. At first I was tempted to single Yeoh out for praise, but realized that may have had more to do with my familiarity with her than anything else. All three are outstanding and deserve to be mentioned together. I'm far from a marital arts expert, but I found the fight scenes, though disappointingly too brief, flawlessly choreographed. Other than the finale, one of my favorites featured Maggie Cheung and an automatic weapon facing off against four hooded assassins. Cool stuff! There are a few things that could have been different that would have made me enjoy The Heroic Trio even more. It seemed to me that the action and momentum of the movie was broken up far too often by scenes of schmaltzy sentimentality. And what was with the music? I understand the music won some awards, but it's hardly what I would have picked. I suppose that my complaints could be due to my Western sensibilities more than anything. As it is, I found The Heroic Trio an interesting and entertaining experience.

Jesse This film is early wire-fu at its best. It is not Western cinema, and has to be viewed in the cultural context of wire-fu. It has great action sequences, over the top acting and plot line, unbelievable CHI powers, in other words, everything we love about wire-fu, and to review it in any other context is muddled reasoning at best. It's themes of redemption and honor is particularly poignant. The heroines are comic book perfection, the villains, get high marks for creepiness factor, and the supporting cast provides interesting foils. Not the best film, but a great one none the less. The Heroic Trio is definitely one of the better popcorn films out there.

Bogey Man Ching Siu Tung, the master of wire work, and Johnnie To, the director of incredible The Big Heat, directed Heroic Trio in 1992. It stars three incredible beauties Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh. The story is very confusing, but these ladies play Thief Catcher (Cheung), Wonder Woman (Mui) and Invisible Girl (Yeoh) somewhere in future, where evil demon is kidnapping little babies in town, and it is soon revealed that he wants to train one of them to become the future king of China. The Demon has a helper played by very talented actor Anthony Wong (The Untold Story, Hard Boiled, Full Contact etc.) who can fight and keep intruders away from the demon master and babies. These three fighting ladies are on the trail of that baby stealing demon, and they start their fight for justice as the babies must get back safe. The story has some twists and turns, so it may seem a little confusing at first viewing, but the main merits of the film are not in the plot but in the outrageous and unbelievable action scenes, from which director Ching Siu Tung is best known. His most important films include Duel to the Death (the debut), Witch From Nepal and Swordsman films among many others. He is known also as "the wire master" and it is easy to tell why.Heroic Trio is fantastic fantasy film, and will blow the viewer away, if one is not familiar with these kind of Orient wonders. These films have no equivalent in Western cinema. In Heroic Trio there hardly are any slow moments and only little of the usual stupid slapstick humor, that ruins little otherwise great films like Savior of the Soul and Ching Siu Tung's Terra Cotta Warrior. Heroic Trio is pure action and visuality, and it is easy to love, because there are practically no negative points in the film, considering this is pretty harmless fantasy genre.The photography and atmosphere is stunning! The streets of Hong Kong are very misty and the greatest scenes are in the underworld in which the demon lives. It is hard to describe with words how this film looks like. The camera twists and flows smoothly and there seems not to be limits for visuality in these films. The fight scenes are great as usual, as wires are used and people fly high and camera shoots every detail in every possible angle. Ching Siu Tung is also action director and choreographer, and he has served in these roles in films like Tsui Hark's Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain and John Woo's The Killer and A Better Tomorrow 2. Films in which Ching Siu Tung are involved are usually totally over-the-top magic fests, and thus very unique even in Hong Kong cinema.There is no any particular content in Heroic Trio and it is kind of empty, but if one can tolerate that and enjoy the visual perfection of this action film, then Heroic Trio is among the greatest Asian fantasy films. The sequel is far more serious as the atmosphere is very dark and holocaust like, and it is easy to see symbols about Hong Kong's future in 1997..Heroic Trio has also very memorable music soundtrack and the film won even some prize for its theme song in Hong Kong movie awards or some other movie contest. The music is especially brilliant and sort of ominous in the underworld scenes with the sleeping and waking evil demon. The atmosphere is so brilliant, and the feel is just like one would feel in demon's cave! The soundtrack is great throughout, but those particular "demon scenes" are definitely worth a mentioning. Heroic Trio is not too serious film, it is just action fantasy almost as fantastic as they come, but if there had been some theme or message in the film, it probably would've been even greater as a whole. A Chinese Ghost Story (also Ching Siu Tung's film) is perfect example of this: both visually unbeatable and still spiritually noteworthy. I like Heroic Trio still very much, because the look of the film is so unique, and this was actually the first of these Orient fantasy films I ever saw, and thus I was very amazed when I first saw this. Now after second viewing the magic's still there and the movie has not lost its impact on me.Heroic Trio is 9/10 film, and is among the greatest (if not the cleverest) Hong Kong fantasies ever made. There are many many others, too, but Heroic Trio is proudly among them.

Puppetmister Is this really as bad as Teen Wolf or Highlander 3, as one reviewer here has suggested? No. In fact, if you're attuned to the kind of crazy stuff that was surgin forth from Hong Kong's movie factories in the early 90s, this will already be a key component of your cult viewing repertoire. The three leads are all stunning and elegant adn everything else is secondary. The plot is maudlin and at times really cloyingly sentimental, but this is just HK cinema for you, and it always displays extreme emotions in a deliberately heightened manner. Its ultimately a really enjoyable film, but you have to see it with some kind of cultural/historical context in mind to help you avoid those nagging Teen Wolf comparisons...