Twenty years ago, the Hong Kong police executed a secret operation in Macao to take down a dangerous gang of rebels. However, the mission was a disaster, leaving many casualties on all sides, including civilians. It was quickly covered up, blamed on a gas leak, and never spoken of again. The only surviving cops involved in the raid were Madam Fong (Jade Leung, Black Cat) and Tam Ka Ming (Patrick Tam), both of whom are still haunted by what happened twenty years later. And Tam is still upset that the families of the cops who died were never told the truth about what happened, or given proper compensation.

In the present, Madam Fong, Chief Superintendent Tam Ka Ming, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police are planning to attend an important luncheon in Macao. Madam Fong has organized a team to protect the DCP during the trip, assigning Hong Kong Police officers Alma (Jeana Ho) and Zi Han (Min Chen Lin) to join local Macao policewomen Sheila (Hidy Hu) and Tong Yu (Jadie Lin). While the luncheon goes off without any issues, as the DCP’s caravan is heading back to Hong Kong, it is attacked by by three bumbling young felons looking to incite another PR nightmare for the HK police. However, much to their chagrin, the cops quickly cover up the incident, reporting it as an accident rather than a terrorist attack. As the HK police look for the men responsible for the attack, the situation escalates, and a ghost from the past returns looking for deadly vengeance. It is up to this team of skilled female cops to take down the threat and restore justice.

The Fatal Raid is a sequel to the 2016 film Special Female Force, though I did not realize this until after-the-fact. I had never heard of the other film, but I don’t know that having seen it would have helped to make this sequel more coherent. There is not a lot of character development in The Fatal Raid. Madam Fong and Tam Ka Ming appear in both timelines. In 1998, Jade (aka Madam Fong) is a new recruit to the police force, which didn’t really have any female officers at the time. She and Tam are the only cops to survive the big massive shootout in Macao, but over the past 20 years they have never been allowed to talk about what happened publicly. Instead, they have had to keep their feelings bottled up inside, often experiencing flashbacks to the traumatic event where they witnessed several of their own colleagues/firends and some innocent bystanders being mowed down. The only other characters who receive any kind of backstory are female officers Alma and Zi Han. Alma is more straight-laced and by-the-books, and has been with the force a while. Zi Han is new to the team—a brilliant young officer working as an intern for Interpol. As the film opens, Alma is undercover seducing a bad guy in a brothel when things go awry and her cover is blown. Zi Han makes the call to bring in a sniper to take out the mark, even though Alma insists she can still salvage the mission. This leads to some animosity between the two women, which continues throughout the film as they are forced to work together on the DCP protection detail. The rest of the characters are barely even introduced, and it was often difficult to even differentiate one cop from another.

The Fatal Raid is not the most well-written film, and I found it to be a bit confusing at times. The tone of the movie is also all over the place. The film is bookended by these two massive, exciting shoutout sequences, one in 1998 and one in 2018, and in the middle there is this emotional drama/trauma that Jade and Tam are dealing with, as well as some other smaller action sequences, and a few odd moments of humor. At its core The Fatal Raid is primarily a “Girls With Guns” flick, excessively utilizing slow motion whenever the female cops arrive on a scene. We see this in the opening sequence at the brothel as other undercover female cops are called into action, and as Alma and Zi Han arrive at the luncheon in their cocktail dresses. There is also this completely random scene when Alma and Zi Han join up with the female Macao cops, who tell them to get changed—this rock music starts to play and things go into slow motion as the two women strip down to their undergarments while standing on a bridge. In general the action sequences are well-shot and choreographed, but this slow motion women with guns motif becomes an overused staple.

Inbetween the action, the film often follows Tam and/or Jade as they dwell on that disastrous raid from their past, and the emotional toll it is taking on them. This gets a bit repetitive and starts to weigh the film down a bit. To help offset this, there are also some odd moments of humor. While they didn’t quite work and felt a bit out of place, I think I would have actually enjoyed the film more had it fully embraced the action-comedy genre, making the film a lot lighter and more fun. One of the characters solely added for comic relief is Lee Tse Hang, one of the young Macao police officers assigned to accompany Zi Han while she is protecting the DCP. He is obviously smitten with her—when he first sees her, he has a daydream about them falling in love, and later we see Tse Hang go speechless or get tongue-tied around Zi Han. He is the only character in this action-drama who thinks he’s in a rom-com. It had the startings of a fun relationship that I wish had been explored more. Also, when we first meet the trio of bumbling young men who attack the DCP’s vehicle, it appears they will also be a source of comic relief—one has coke all over is face, another is also a bit high, and the young men use duct tape to create make-shift masks for their attack. However, after this sequence the trio are suddenly no longer The Three Stooges but more like your standard bad guys with martial arts skills to be reckoned with. It felt like there was a version of this film that wanted to be a full-blown action-comedy but the filmmakers couldn’t quite commit to it.

Well Go’s Blu-ray release offers both the original Cantonese soundtrack as well as an English dub. On these foreign films, I typically try the English dub first, which was actually pretty well done (though most of the characters have more of a British accent). I don’t speak Cantonese, so I can’t comment on the native soundtrack, however, the English subtitles were quite disappointing, filled with confusing, broken English and some misspellings (IPCO aka Interpol is referred to as ICOP the first time, despite the characters saying the correct acronym). The subtitles were often vastly different than what was being spoken in the English dub audio, which was much better and clearer than the subtitles. I don’t know how much folks who don’t speak Cantonese would enjoy watching this release with the original language track relying only on those subtitles. It would have been better if the subtitles had matched the dubbed dialogue. The disc offers both “Full English” and “English” subtitles, but I didn’t notice any difference in the content when comparing them for some of the more problematic sequences. The Blu-ray release is pretty barebones, with no bonus material except for the film’s trailer as well as previews for some other Well Go releases. The overall picture quality is quite good, with a clean and detailed image, though some of the blood spatter looks very CG. The 5.1 audio tracks provide a nice immersive quality to the action, surrounding the viewer with the sound of flying bullets and explosions.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:31:20)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: Cantonese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Cantonese Stereo, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Stereo
• Subtitles: Full English, English

Extras:

• Trailer (1:26)
• Previews
  • Raging Fire (1:47)
  • Deliver Us From Evil (1:23)
  • Undercover Punch and Gun (1:33)

Final Thoughts:

The Fatal Raid has some nice, exciting action sequences, but I found the story itself to be pretty poorly written and confusing at times, and a bit weighed down by some of the drama. At times it seemed like the film wanted to be an action-comedy, but it veers more into this deeper revenge/trauma storyline, mixed with lots of slow motion girls-with-guns shots. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, but the English subtitles left a lot to be desired, which may disappoint the non-native speakers who prefer to watch these foreign films with the original language track. I would suggest a rental first for fans of the genre rather than a blind buy.