The Inspector Wears Skirts series started with the broad comedy found in Police Academy film with the action provided by the Jackie Chan stunt team. The elite female police unit proved to be a smashing success at the box office. While the first two films were done by Golden Harvest, the third was taken over by an independent production studio. The focus became more on the comedy. The Inspector Wears Skirts 4 brought the unit back to Golden Harvest for one more mission.
The SKIRTS elite female police unit attack a concrete criminal hideout in full force. The bullets and fists are unrelenting during the mission. They thought they wouldn’t face much opposition and are a little bit unprepared. Amy (Golden Chicken‘s Sandra Kwan Yue Ng) and male leader Nam (Mr. Vampire‘s Billy Lau) have become a couple. They holding hands as they approach their target as if it is a date night activity. When they find a woman alone, Amy doesn’t appreciate Nam’s technique which almost gets them killed. Inside the main building, May (My Young Auntie‘s Kara Wai) takes a massive tumble to avoid a grenade blast. This leads to her landing headfirst on the ground. After the mission, quite a few women leave the SKIRTS. Amy eventually gets pregnant. May’s head trauma causes her to go insane. This sudden depletion in the ranks causes a new set of women to go through SKIRTS training. During the graduation ceremony, there is no time to celebrate. At a nearby hospital, a convicted mobster (Fist of Fury‘s James Tien) has been rushed into the operating room for emergency surgery. His son and gang give dad a visit except instead of flowers, they’re packing weapons. The newbie SKIRTS show up and are in over their heads. The only thing that keeps the mission from being a complete disaster is Madam Yang (In The Line of Duty III‘s Cynthia Khan) rolling in on her motorcycle and kicking serious ass as she flies through the air. The gang gets away with the doctor as a hostage, but not their criminal leader. This does not bode well for the SKIRTS as the head of the Hong Kong police informs Superintendent Hu (Police Story‘s Fong Woo) that if SKIRTS can’t hack it, they’ll be disbanded. Madam Yang will judge the unit’s effectiveness. The panicked new recruits want to get back former members to help them. But it’s not easy. We learn what happened to a few members who don’t appear in the film except through highlights of the older films. We also meet one that’s become a nun and another that’s nine months pregnant. Finally they meet up with Amy who is a single mother. They do quite a bit of coercing to get her re-enlist in the SKIRTS. They also get May to return, but she’s extremely unpredictable so this might have been a bad idea. As the ladies attempt to save SKIRTS, the mobsters plot to release their leader.
The Inspector Wears Skirts 4 ups the amount of action from the third installment. The opening attack scene and the hospital shoot out is full out mayhem. The finale has action along with bizarre comedy involving freeing the hostages from the mobsters. The best cross of comedy and stunts involves Shiela Chan as the cop wife of Nam. She senses her husband is cheating on her and goes to extreme lengths to bust him in the act. This includes recreating major stunts from Jackie Chan’s Police Story except without Jackie’s results. This includes her chasing a double decker bus and jumping off a balcony at a shopping mall.
Even though Golden Harvest produced the film, the Jackie Chan’s stunt team didn’t return. Alan Chung San Chui took over the fights for 4. He had previous done the work on A Chinese Ghost Story. There’s a lot of wire work as SKIRTS use booster pads and boots to go airborne at certain points. Cynthia Khan is able to pull off his badass power ballet when she arrives in the middle of the criminal chaos at the hospital. While it might seem odd to have her come over from the more serious In The Line of Duty series, she doesn’t play the character for laughs. She’s the straight cop for the keystone action.
The Inspector Wears Skirts 4 brings the film series to an end at a good spot. They don’t repeat the formula of the previous films here. The slapstick gets rather queasy with an ending that I best not describe to not spoil the film or gross you out. The SKIRTS last mission is the strangest and most intense of the series.
The Video is 1.85:1 anamorphic. The transfer is 2K remaster from the original negatives. The 1080p image looks great as the SKIRTS fly across the screen. The Audio is English LPCM 2.0 mono. There’s also the Cantonese track in LPCM 2.0 Mono. The movie was dubbed in post-production so everything sounds fine. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng means he’s covered the entire series on Blu-ray. Immediately he lets us know that this is the final entry in the series because it completely bombed at the box office. What happened? Turns out 1992 was the year Stephen Chow dominated. He had the Top 5 films of the year. Audiences weren’t eager to see another installment. Djeng appreciates the comedy in this film. He gives the biographies of various cast members. He lets us in on the cultural jokes that don’t translate with the subtitles. Frank is one of the producers on Enter The Clones of Bruce, a thrilling documentary about the Bruceploitation genre.
Hong Kong Trailer (4:39) lets us know Wellson Chin is back with the SKIRTS. We get a lot of fire power to show this is more than comedy like in the third installment.
Image Gallery (2:41) has press photos.
88 Films present The Inspector Wears Skirts 4: Special Edition. Director Wellson Chin. Screenplay by Abe Kwong & Chun-Wai Lau. Starring Cynthia Khan, Moon Lee, Sandra Kwan Yue Ng, Wan-Yee Tse, Billy Lau, Fung Woo, Jeong-il Choi, Kara Wai, Sheila Chan, Lung Chan, Paul Fonoroff, Pak Lam Cheng, James Tien & Wing-Cho Yip. Running Time: 94 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: July 9, 2024.
