The Heroine (1973)

Pretty Good

People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is probably the only movie where Jackie plays the bad guy. He's the right hand man of a crime boss in this movie.The movie follows the old school format of movies of that era. Charlie Chin was enormously popular back in those days, and he was the lead in every movie he starred in. Young Jackie had to take back seat to him on this one. Charlie Chin's type of mellow movie would be usurped by kung fu action movies shortly, because the year this movie was made, "Enter the Dragon" by Bruce Lee would hit the theaters, and cause a kung fu action movie craze that is still on going today. The story is about heroin trafficking in Hong Kong, and Jackie is one of the gangs. The movie gets to a very predictable ending, and production wise, nothing to speak of. But this type of movie was considered entertaining with a double feature at the theaters back then. In almost every other movie, you'd see Charlie Chin playing the star.See the movie for the nostalgia.

From reading about the edits, and people's complaints, I think I've seen a much better cut. Certainly the physical quality is that of a 70s low budget Hong Kong film, but that's understandable. The story I watched made perfect sense. It had a logical ending, and overall I enjoyed it. I suppose if you're watching this purely for Jackie Chan, you will be disappointed. And I agree it is dishonest retro marketing to label it a Jackie movie. I saw a copy of Cannon Ball Run in Hong Kong that had Jackie Chan on the cover and said "Starring Jackie Chan" obviously Hong Kong loves their boy, get used to it. Purely as a film I though it had decent action, a good story and I enjoyed the overall tone. I've seen a lot (probably not even half) of Chan's films, I think this did more to showcase his skills than everything he's done in America from Rush Hour on. He does some serious stunts here, he hit hard, he's quick. He even gets to fight the final showdown with the protagonist. There are some problems. 1. Apparently the original name was Police Woman, there is a female cop protagonist, but she's given a supporting role, only appearing at the very beginning, and towards the end. 2. The dubbing is bad, the voice acting is very good, but the dialog is often off timed, which is a minor annoyance, the dubbing audio quality is as bad as it can get without being inaudible. 3. Some scenes are choppy, but there is one big screwed up edit that comes in right before the climax, it's so bad you have to pretend you didn't see it or nothing makes sense. 4. It might be a casualty of aspect crossovers, but many of the scenes seem to have the camera off to the side, missing the action. As with the editing and dubbing, your experience may vary based on which cut you have. I enjoyed this simple city story about a taxi driver crossing paths with a street gang, I enjoyed that the "good citizens" and friends backed him up (going against the cliché' 'go it alone' story) I enjoyed the action, with Charlie Chin and Qiu Yuen as the unstoppable good guys, and the antagonists led by Jackie Chan actually being able to fight. My votes are usually similar to the IMDb score, altogether, I think if everyone saw the copy I did this film would be rated much higher, at least a 6, I give it a 7/10 because I can overlook the dubbing issues and scratchy film quality which certainly didn't exist when it premiered.

I've brought the DVD for 4 bucks at a used video store. I was sorta ticked off with the poor quality of the film. I know it's an old, foreign film but they should've put it on the box for those that may buy it new. But what i liked about the film was seeing Shu Qui. She came back to us in the Kung Fu Hustle as the Landlady. I always liked her films along with Shang Kuan and Chia Ling. As for Jackie, he was alright but the hype on the DVD cover should've been dismissed. Maybe the art director might read this and redesign the cover and title it " the Policewoman featuring Jackie Chan as the Villain". Maybe the viewers might not shoot the DVD after buying it.

I agree, this film isn't good. For a start Jackie is a bad guy? Which is weird to see, also he fights badly, even the taxi driver can beat him. No one in the film is bothered to fight, every character, at least once tried to run over someone! The filming wasn't done very well either, the camera keeps cutting of people while they're talking so you can see the person stood next to them and a tiny bit of the person talkings face. There isn't any chemistry between the main character, when the Taxi driver goes to rescue her, it just seems pointless and we think that he wouldn't bother in real life, just phone the police. Jackie Chan is hardly in it, and when he is, he isn't convincing as a bad guy. Jackie stick to the good guy and don't put that mole on again!