A routine girls 'n' guns Hong Kong action flick from the 80s, Godfrey Ho's Deadly China Dolls has all of the right ingredients: sexy female assassins, machine gun toting bad guys, and faceless goons in suits and sunglasses ripe for the killing. Unfortunately, the unremarkable story and Ho's sub-par direction (think John Woo, but with barely a fraction of the panache and originality) mean that the film is, for the most part, rather tedious. However, the inclusion of several scenes of gratuitous nudity, some bloody battles, and the occasional martial arts moment makes it just about watchable for fans of bullets and babes mayhem.
The messy story revolves around the greedy nephew of a crime lord, who has his uncle bumped off so that he can take over the business. There are several silly plot threads which include his wish to also bump off the stepson of his dead uncle, and eliminate the assassins he hired (in order to tie up loose ends). Meanwhile, a cop (Sibelle Hu), is out to arrest any or all of the bad guys.
Ho litters his film with splattery squib spurting gunfights in which nearly everyone gets shot at least ten times, pausing occasionally to include a sleazy sex scene (featuring full frontal female nudity) to spice things up, but the result is a so-so addition to the genre which adds nothing new.
