Operation Black-Ops
绝密任务
China, 2026, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 106 mins.
Director: Zhong Shaoxiong 钟少雄 [Billy Chung].
Rating: 5/10.
Generic, old-style Girls With Guns fare has a couple of good leads but a nothing script that just moves from one action sequence to another.
STORY
Somewhere in the Golden Triangle, Southeast Asia, the present day, August. On her way to attend a multilateral leaders’ summit on peace and development, to be held in Ning city, high-ranking Southeast Asian politician Sanda (Vanidah Binti Imran) is tricked by a supposed colleague, Annu (Jeb), into changing her itinerary and is kidnapped by a terrorist group led by Balang, her onetime political opponent. The 12-strong women’s team in the anti-terrorist Devils’ Squad, based near Quanzhou city, Fujian province, eastern China, is assigned to find her and get her to the summit meeting that starts at 10:00 the next day. The team leader is Chen Zijing (Yu Wenwen), and they have 16 hours, leaving their base at 17:30. Arriving in the region at night, the team manages to parachute into the sea before their three helicopters are shot down. Jin Feng (Lu Jingshan), the tem’s sharpshooter, is initially thought lost but joins them at the last monent. The team is met by two male colleagues, Cao (Zhang Suzhe) and He Qiang (Zhu Shuoran), who drive them to an old mansion on the outskirts of a large city where Sanda is being held prisoner. Also there, working for the terrorist group, is Ketan (Yu Wenle), a ruthless professional gambler, and Dulun (Ye Tong), an equally ruthless terrorist who has been sent by Balang – her adoptive father – to lead the terrorist group, as she is looking for revenge on Sanda for her parents’ death. The team storms the building; but super-warrior Dulun kills one of them, Mulan (Wang Feifei), and wounds another, Nezha (Liang Yue’er). The terrorist leaders escape with Sanda, but Jin Feng manages to lob a tracing device into their car. At 23:30 the team reaches a secret underground supply centre, where they re-equip. Jin Feng tells Chen Zijing that she recognised one of the terrorist group who semed to avoid harming them; she thinks Ketan is actually Bat, a former officer in the Devils’ Squad who originally helped her join. Meanwhile, Dulun tells Sanda that the price for her freedom is to apologise at tomorrow’s summit meeting for what she did 20 years ago. The Devils’ Squad team tracks the terrorists to the top floor of an empty building. During the big shootout, Chen Zijing makes secret contact with Bat, whom she last saw seven years ago and had always fancied; he tells her to first find a terrorist called Suba, and leaves her a phone so he can contact her. He later cals her and says Suba will bomb the summit meeting with a missile. A middleman, Niwan (Telford), tells the team he can get into Suba’s HQ if he takes Jin Feng with him, as she is the daughter of Suba’s old enemy, former Devils’ Squad commander Jin Zhigang (Gao Shuguang). But the plan would involve Jin Feng being turned over to the psychotic Suba and tortured by him, as a diversion while Niwan neutralises Suba’s control centre and the team storms his HQ.
REVIEW
Apart from the fact that the anti-terrorist squad is based in China, which is therefore doing its part in keeping regional peace, Operation Black-Ops 绝密任务 could pretty much have been made anytime in Hong Kong during the past 40-odd years – a throwback to the Girls With Guns genre that produced some of the greatest action heroines of the 1980s and 1990s. Mainland-funded but with many Hong Kong key crew, this one doesn’t have any big names on that level but is a slick enough time-passer put together by veteran Hong Kong journeyman Zhong Shaoxiong 钟少雄 [Billy Chung], 63 – Love to Kill 虐之恋 (1993), Esprit d’Amour 阴阳爱 (2001), plus films with Wang Jing 王晶 [Wong Jing] like To Live and Die in Mongkok 旺角监狱 (2009) and the excellent From Vegas to Macau 赌城风云 (2014) – with a strictly functional script by Mainland lead writer/producer Wang Wei 王维, 60, who’s often focused on military subjects. Shot largely in Malaysia during Sep-Nov 2020, with some work around Quanzhou city, east China, it was finally released this summer to a tiny box office of RMB4.5 million. Nowadays this kind of generic fare belongs on the internet, not the big screen.
The screenplay is basically an excuse for a series of increasingly elaborate action sequences. A main title sequence sets the scene, as well as introducing the team of 12 women from the (fictional) anti-terrorism group known as the Devils’ Squad. Before the audience has hardly had time to get acquainted with them, they’re sent off on a mission to rescue a kidnapped Southeast Asian politician and get her to a peace summit by 10:00 the following morning. The script basically centres on four – the team captain (played by Mainland/Canadian actress-singer Yu Wenwen 于文文 [Kelly Yu]), the wrestling specialist (Mainland action tomboy Jiang Luxia 蒋璐霞), the sniper (reliable Mainland actress Qu Jingjing 屈菁菁), and the sharpshooter (top-billed Lu Jingshan 卢靖姗 [Celina Jade], Hong Kong-born daughter of onetime action figure Roy Horan) – and ignores the rest, though even those four get patchy treatment from the writers.
The Mainland’s best-known action woman, Jiang, who no longer seems to be doing stunt-heavy sequences, looks more tomboyish than ever here and spends a lot of time emotionally wound up about her fellow females, especially her BFF, the cute sniper, played okay by Qu. However, the most commanding screen presence comes from top-billed Lu, 35 at the time of shooting, as the sharpshooter, who tends to throw Yu’s rather lacklustre team captain into the shade with her more mature presence. Hong Kong’s Yu Wenle 余文乐 [Shawn Yue] makes the most of a rather token male part as an undercover agent, while Mainlander Ye Tong 叶彤, in punk garb, tattoos and butch haircut, is memorable (but under-used later on) as the generic sadistic superwoman.
Action is well-staged and often very visceral but, as so often nowadays, has no sense of geography or space, and relies on rapid cutting rather than extended fight sequences. As most of the action is set during the night, and with the characters wearing headgear, it’s often difficult to work out who is who, let alone get involved with their individual stories. Things also aren’t helped by too many characters crowding the script – which give even less time to developing the lead women. Kudos to the film-makers for using several actresses in their 30s rather than young cuties, but they deserved a better script than this one.
Technical credits are fine, with good-looking widescreen photography by Hong Kong action/horror specialist Wu Qiming 伍启铭. As so often in such genre fare, the music is just sonic wallpaper. The Chinese title simply means “Top-Secret Mission”. The film is not to be confused with Operation Black Ops (unhyphenated), a US action movie directed by Jamaal Burden and released on the internet in 2023.
CREDITS
Presented by Quanzhou Tiandefu Cultural Media (CN), Quanzhou South Wing Real Estate Development Group (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Beijing Dipai Cultural Media (CN). Produced by Suzhou Yumo Yinghua Film & TV Culture Media (CN), Fujian Xinghai Yinghua Film & TV Production (CN).
Script: Wang Wei, Chen Yitong, Wang Bingqing. Photography: Wu Qiming. Editors: Huang Hai, Liu Yuhua, Lu Zhihao. Music supervision: Zhu Yunbian. End-titles song (铮铮铁骨玫瑰心/”Bones As Steadfast As Iron, A Heart Like a Rose”): Yin Qing (music), He Dongjiu (lyrics), Lei Jia (vocals). Art direction: Zhong Zhipeng. Styling: Zhang Shijie. Sound: Cheng Xiaolong. Action: Han Ping, Han Guanhua. Visual effects: Zhang Wei. Artistic supervision: Liu Jianwei. Artistic advice: He Dongjiu. Military advice: Tian Weidong, Zhu Xian, Wang Jing. Executive direction: Chen Zhongtai, Chen Weixiong. Co-ordinating direction: Li Xiaobang.
Cast: Lu Jingshan [Celina Jade] (Jin Feng, sharpshooter), Yu Wenle [Shawn Yue] (Ketan/Bat/Zu), Yu Wenwen [Kelly Yu] (Chen Zijing, assault specialist, team leader), Jiang Luxia (Qi Yan, wrestler), Qu Jingjing (Ning Bao’er, sniper), Zhang Suzhe (Cao), Zhu Shuoran (He Qiang), Ming Ziyu (Houzi/Monkey), Chu Xu (Xiongmao/Panda), Liang Yue’er (Nezha), Wang Feifei (Mulan), Chang Dandan (Kaixinguo/Pistachio), Jin Lihuizi (Shen Huan), Pan Xiuyue (Jiu’er), Zhu Tingchen (Linghu/Fox), Ye Tong (Dulun), Vanidah Binti Imran (Sanda), Cao Cao [Jonathan Kos-Read] (K), Yu Kang (Suba), Jeb (Angnu/Annu), Yu Xiaoguang (Jiang Feng, Devils’ Squad commander), Tao Huimin (Ning Bao’er’s mother), Zhou Huilin (Ning Bao’er’s father), Gao Shuguang (Jin Zhigang, Jin Feng’s father), Wang Ruolin (Yang Chengye), Liu Yichen (Lu Mingchen), Keno (Kainuo/Keno), Shang Xin (Ye Juan), Telford (Naiwen/Niwan), Norfara Binti Ali Dad Khan (Hongyu, Sanda’s female bodyguard).
Release: China, 19 Jun 2026.