THEY CALL HER CLEOPATRA WONG (1976)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

CLEOPATRA WONG, almost certainly named as an associative tie-in to the American CLEOPATRA JONES films of 1973 and 1975, managed to surpass their model in that the titular heroine of this Filipino-Singaporean went on to two more exploits.

Cleopatra is played by Marrie Lee, a young woman who won the role despite no substantial previous acting-experience. Lee plays an Interpol agent based in Singapore but who travels to both Hong Kong and the Philippines in her quest to shut down a counterfeiting ring. Like her American forbear, she gets to sashay around in glamorous outfits and easily fight off any thugs sent to stifle her investigation. In WONG's most memorable scene, Cleo infiltrates the compound of one of her enemies, and the crime-lord forces her to fight three burly male wrestlers. When Cleo bests them all with no sweat, the boss sends about twenty judo students after her. Naturally, as in most similar chopsockies, the students don't rush Cleo en masse but considerately fight her one at a time and get clobbered. When things look a little too hot, Cleo simply runs to an adjoining wall, at least twenty feet tall, and leaps straight up to the top in order to escape.

Despite this feat, Cleo never displays any other "superlative skills," so I don't count her as belonging to that department. However, she does have a couple of uncanny weapons. An online review describes her rifle as a "supergun," and, as seen in the illustration above, the firearm has two big barrels, which image might have been a play on Dirty Harry's big-barreled Magnum. A gun with two big barrels might not be the most practical weapon for a female agent. Even less so is the weapon she uses to take out an enemy helicopter: an arrow with three explosive heads. which doesn't sound very good in terms of aerodynamics.

There's no attempt to spotlight a mastermind responsible for the counterfeiting operation, so Marrie Lee is essentially the only character to watch here, even toward the end when she brings in some backup to help her raze a nunnery taken over by phony nuns. I seem to remember that both of the sequels are better in terms of both stunts and support characters, but time will tell.