Golden Queen Commandos (1982) starring Hui SanYang (Elsa Yeung), Bridget Lin, Sally Yeh, Teresa Tsui, Silvia Pang, Hao-yi Liu, and Sophia Chin. Directed by Yen-ping Chu.

Synopsis: When seven beautiful, but deadly, women are imprisoned in World War II Japan, they are joined together by Black Fox (Bridget Lin) for a special mission. They escape the jail and ride off to the plains of Tibet. There, at all costs,  they must stop an evil genius from perfecting an insidious chemical weapon .

To say that the synopsis doesn’t do Golden Queen Commandos justice is a massive understatement. If you’ve ever wanted to see a film that had everything (and I mean everything), then you have got to check this flick out. The film kicks off by introducing each of our heroines with separate vignettes topped off by freeze frames, and then it becomes a women in prison film. After they play basketball (yes, you heard me right), GQC changes gears into an escape from prison film that morphs into a Western. Then after the noodle eating contest (yep, you heard me right again), the femme fatales become women on a mission, and with equal parts James Bond and supernatural undertones, the film rolls along to a thrilling climax.

It should come as no surprise to fans of Asian cinema that this miasma of styles was penned by Godfrey Ho, the master of the Hong Kong B-movie, and first time writer and sometimes composer Li Fu. Ho really went all out on this one, and second time director Yen-ping Chu (directing as Laurence Full) was clearly ready to go along with the ride. The film is such a mix of styles and eras that it is incredible.

Black Car (Hui San Yang) looks like she stepped right out of anime while the Amazon (Teresa Tsui) is the super strong jungle queen that her name implies, and Sophia Chin’s Sugar is a Southern accented prostitute. While the plot is bizarre and the characters surreal, what really makes the film is the dubbing. I don’t know who is responsible for the over the top voices, but I would love to shake their hand. All the voices are inspired, and if you listen closely you can pick up little things they snuck in such as when a group of Japanese SS troops are after the girls and one of them says, “I got to get to the leather bar.”

Needless to say, I loved this picture and would love to see the sequel Pink Force Commandos that reunited the main cast in similar roles. Everything about Golden Queen Commandos makes it one of the best cult films I’ve ever seen. It is a great film to watch alone, and an even better film to put on when you’ve got friends over. So if the thought of a film that features everything except the kitchen sink appeals to you, then you owe it to yourself to check out this classic piece of bizarre cinema.