Inspector Wears Skirts, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Mar 07, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Wellson ChinRelease Date(s)
1988 (December 26, 2023)Studio(s)
Golden Harvest/Light Beam Productions (88 Films)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B-
- Extras Grade: B
Review
The Inspector Wears Skirts (aka Ba wong fa and Top Squad) is female empowerment done Hong Kong action style, which means that it’s a bit complicated in that regard. Hong Kong cinema has always been unafraid of wild tonal shifts, veering sharply from drama to comedy to tragedy, and even to open farce. The Inspector Wears Skirts has plenty of action and even some bloody violence, but it leans heavily into the farcical elements, It takes place in the full “girls with guns” crime milieu of the In the Line of Duty series, but mixed with the slapstick comedy of the Lucky Stars series—and it shares a few actors with both (although they’re playing different characters here). Rather than being a serious examination of female police trainees trying to make their way in a man’s world, The Inspector Wears Skirts is a broad comedy in the vein of the Police Academy series, which means that it’s constantly undercutting any real sense of empowerment that it may offer. Yet it still has a couple of serious aces up its sleeves in the form of Sibelle Hu and Cynthia Rothrock.
Hu and Rothrock play Madame Wu and Madame Law, two female officers who successfully take down a terrorist group and save the life of a Middle Eastern oil sheikh who is visiting the country. Commissioner Tung (played by Bill Tung, naturally) is so impressed by the way that they run circles around their male counterparts that he asks them to train a new unit of female officers that he unimaginatively names the SKIRTS. Wu selects a group of promising candidates that includes May (Kara Wei), Aileen (Regina Kent), Jean (Ellen Chan), Karen (Ann Bridgewater), Amy (Sandra Kwan Yue Ng), Joanna (Joanna Chen), and Amin (Pei-ling Lee). As Wu leads the women through a rigorous training program, they find themselves tangling with a rival group of male recruits led by Chief Kan (Stanley Fung). Much hijinks ensue, including an incongruous musical number set at a roller-skating rink. Yet once again, the women will end up saving the day when they’re sent on their first real assignment.
The Inspector Wears Skirts was produced by Jackie Chan, making full use of his stunt team and the sets left over from his recent Project A. He was really more of an executive producer, since he was entirely absent from the set both behind the camera and in front of it as well—he doesn’t even have a cameo in the film. That’s probably for the best, though, since even a fleeting appearance by him would have distracted from the talents of the women who were included. Under the guidance of director Wellson Chin, Chan’s stunt team did their usually fine work in The Inspector Wears Skirts, and the actors got in on the action as well (including a fire gag that didn’t quite go as planned, so be sure to watch the closing credits montage). Rothrock was a relatively late addition to the cast, so she’s absent for much of the running time, but she does get to show off her ability to handle martial arts weaponry, and she also gets to have a memorable face-off against Jeffrey Falcon. (Falcon learned to regret facing off against one of the other actors in the film, as that closing montage demonstrates.) It’s all pretty inconsequential stuff, but The Inspector Wears Skirts was successful enough that it ended up launching a franchise of its own. Sometimes, you just can’t keep a good group of ladies with guns down.
Cinematographers Kam-Hung Au and Andrew Lau (credited collectively as Jimmy Au Kam-Hung) shot The Inspector Wears Skirts on 35 mm film using Arriflex cameras with spherical lenses. 88 Films bills this as a “brand new 2K restoration in 1.85:1 aspect ratio from the original negatives,” with scanning and digital restoration work presumably having been performed by Fortune Star. Either the negative was in excellent shape or else the digital cleanup was stellar, because the results look as clean as possible, with little to no remaining damage of any kind, yet the grain and fine detail is still largely intact. There are just a few shots that seem softer than the rest, which could simply be how they exist on the negative. The colors all look natural, springing to life when appropriate like during the scenes set at the roller-skating rink, but remaining relatively restrained elsewhere. It’s a rock-solid presentation of The Inspector Wears Skirts.
Audio is offered in Cantonese and English 2.0 mono LPCM, with English subtitles. Both tracks offer limited fidelity, with the post-synced dialogue sounding a bit muffled, and it doesn’t integrate well into the soundstage. There’s not much in the way of dynamics, too, with gunfire and explosions offering little punch. Note that there is some audible distortion during a few of the musical peaks on the Cantonese track that isn’t present on the English track, but you’re still better off sticking with the original language instead of the dubbed version.
The 88 Films Blu-ray release of The Inspector Wears Skirts includes a 32-page booklet with an essay by Paul Bramhall, as well as a two-sided foldout poster featuring new artwork by Sean Longmore on one side and the original Hong Kong theatrical poster artwork on the other. The insert is reversible as well, and there’s also a slipcover with the Longmore artwork. The following extras are included:
- Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng
- Shooting Her Shot (HD – 16:46)
- The Director Wears Pants (HD – 16:03)
- Top Squad English Opening and Closing Titles (HD – 2:47)
- Hong Kong Trailer (Upscaled SD – 3:32)
- English Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:02)
- Stills Gallery (HD – 1:41)
The commentary features programmer and former Tai Seng Entertainment marketing manager Frank Djeng, who wastes no time diving into the details about The Inspector Wears Skirts. Djeng wastes no time, period—he talks a mile a minute, so you need to stay on your toes to listen to him. He places the film into its context, noting that it’s essentially an offshoot of the Lucky Stars series (even though some of the shared actors are actually playing different roles in this case). Djeng says that Jackie Chan may have been producer, but he stayed away from the set, trusting instead in his stunt team to handle everything necessary. From there, he offers biographical details about the cast and crew, identifies locations, and even breaks down the song in the musical number set at the roller-skating rink. He also provides an overview of the rest of the films in the series. While Djeng does stop to take a breath occasionally, for the most part this is an appropriately action-packed commentary for an action-packed film.
Shooting Her Shot is an interview with Cynthia Rothrock, who says that she was brought into the production after shooting had already started. She hadn’t worked with the crew or stunt team before, but they gave her plenty of opportunity to flex her weapons skills, especially the cane scene and her fight with Jeffrey Falcon. She talks about the other actors as well, and the probable reason why she didn’t end up returning for the sequel (her career path was finally heading back to America). Rothrock describes The Inspector Wears Skirts as her fourth favorite of all the films that she’s made. The Director Wears Pants is an interview with Wellson Chin, who details his own background and explains how he got into the film business—it didn’t hurt that he was Sammo Hung’s cousin. Like Rothrock, he ended up making the jump from working with Hung’s stunt team to Jackie Chan’s. Chin also describes how The Inspector Wears Skirts was developed (it wasn’t directly inspired by Police Squad) and tells plenty of stories about the production.
The extras are rounded out by trailers, a Stills Gallery, and the titles for the English-language version of the film, Top Squad. There’s nothing significant from any previous releases that hasn’t been included here, so this is pretty much the definitive release of The Inspector Wears Skirts (so far, at least). Highly recommended for fans of Hong Kong cinema, and anyone else who’s able to go with the flow no matter how silly the antics may get.
- Stephen Bjork
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