Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio (1993) is an aesthetic fusion of the contemporary Hong Kong action film and the American superhero films of the late eighties and early nineties. The fight choreography and character designs are all purely Hong Kong while the sets and the general mise-en-scène feel like Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). It’s a great stylistic combo that these days has been distilled to suit Disney’s MCU. But what’s really fun about The Heroic Trio is that it’s about a team of superheroes that is entirely made up of women. Before Margot Robbie gave us Birds Of Prey (2020) there was Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Cheung “doling out whuppings like free cheese” as Sky Ape would say.
In the film Ching Ching (Yeoh), Wonder Woman (Mui), and Thief Catcher (Cheung) all band together against their common enemy; the baby snatching and demon breeding Master (Yen Shi-Kwan). Ching Ching, who begins as a servant to Master, rebels when she is unable to kill her scientist lover as Master had requested. Thief Catcher was once, as a child, the pupil of this evil fiend but escaped many years ago, leaving Ching Ching behind. Wonder Woman, Ching Ching’s sister, has been a heroic force in Hong Kong for years and even married a police detective before discovering that her sister was alive.
The supernatural evil that is Master comes to represent within the dichotomy of the narrative all those social and political systems which oppress women. The battle between good and evil in the film, while ostensibly motivated primarily by the heroes’ desire to rescue abducted babies, actually reads more like a personal reckoning. In the final battle with Master, Ching Ching is physically manipulated by the evil creature’s physical force until she herself confronts the monster in her mind with all of the thoughts and memories that ring with her own sense of autonomy. It’s a powerful and meaningful drama that lurks beneath the campy superhero facade that lends its urgency to the otherwise ridiculously enjoyable narrative.
All of these components could have made for a rather muddy affair. However, the performances of the three leads keep The Heroic Trio a film that is equally as fun as it is brimming with political commentary. It’s hard to say if Johnnie To or anyone involved in the making of the film was out to construct a feminist superhero movie but luckily that is what we have here.
