I created this piece of key art for the 1990 Hong Kong action film SHE SHOOTS STRAIGHT (aka LETHAL LADY). This Corey Yuen-directed film was a starring role for rising action starlet (and Sammo hung's future wife) Joyce Mina Godenzi. The half Chinese, half Australian beauty was the 1984 Miss HK pageant winner who, like many others before and since, transitioned her talents into acting.
Under the tutelage of action master Sammo Hung, Joyce appeared and later starred in a handful of films in the late 1980s and early 1990s before retiring from showbiz. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Hung's 1987 action masterpiece EASTERN CONDORS. Godenzi and Hung wed in 1995 and she had a small cameo in Jackie Chan's 1997 film MR. NICE GUY, directed by her husband and shot in Australia.
SHE SHOOTS STRAIGHT is Joyce at the peak of her powers as an action actress. Her brutal climactic battle with American-born Filipina bodybuilder, Agnes Aurelio, is legendary. And they even got a rematch in LICENSE TO STEEL. The wonderful cast features "big" Tony Leung Ka-fai, Carina Lau, Yuen Wah, Chung Fat, and even Sammo himself in a small role. (Even Mark Houghton gets a brief cameo.) Eagle-eyed viewers may even spot cameos from Amy Yip and Isabella Chow who a year later would blaze across cinema screens in the hit Cat III film SEX AND ZEN.
The films rarely slows down, has a bit more dramatic depth than these types of films are normally afforded and is a lot of fun. That high energy is what I attempted to capture in my cover art. Everybody gets their bit of action while Hung oversees the carnage. Bullets and fists fly in equal measure. And, trust me, you wouldn't want to be in the way of either one.
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