My Shu Qi is a gangster...

When i was in Korea last december I saw a lot of posters for My Wife is a Gangster 3 at stores,  the DVD had just come out.  Chinese/HK film star Shu Qi (Hsu Chi) is in this one.

Many of you may remember how disappointed I was with 'My Wife is a Gangster 2', which featured a 30 second appearence by Zhang Ziyi in the final 30 second cliffhanger finale of the film.  Apparently Zhang Ziyi was too busy to actually do the sequel,  so they got Shu Qi instead.  But wisely they decided to scrap the characters, actors and plot from the first two and go in a completely new direction - much like 'Married to the Mafia 2'is completely different than the first one.

In this case Shu Qi plays the daughter of a HK triad boss who goes to Korea to lay low from a rival HK gang.  She is put under the protection of a hapless uber-macho idiot gangster played by Lee Beom-Su, who you may remember as the bus driver in 'Au Revoir UFO'...  Of course Shu Qi is actually a bad-ass mama who can beat up entire gangs single handedly,  but no one knows that (at first at least).

Trailer is here (Youtube)

Stills and clips here

Most of the humor revolves around the fact that she can't speak korean and he can't speak Chinese, so they hire a young bookish Hyun Yeoung to be their translator.  She spends half the movie mistranslating what gangster queen Shu Qi is saying to the stupid macho gangsters and what they are saying back to her in order to keep everyone from killing eachother.

Of course eventually Shu Qi sees that the gangster is not such a bad guy (his IQ seems to improve as the movie progresses).   And of course eventually he follows her back to HK to profess his love and try to save her from the evil Ken Lo, who plays the rival triad boss who is trying to destroy her family's gang (what a jerk!)

The movie is pretty decent, as far as these types of Korean comedies go.  The male characters are a bit annoying, but Shu Qi and Hyun Young do a pretty decent job.  The main problem is with the martial arts choreography... Actionwise,  Shu Qi is not Zhang Ziyi or Michelle Yeoh, and it really shows in some of the scenes.  Some of it is just plain crappy.  She has done better action in other movies (So Close,  etc) - so I'm guessing its mostly a matter of direction and choreography than just her personal physical limitations (although thats definitely a limiting factor!)

I'll give it a marginal 6/10