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Cleopatra Jones And The Casino Of Gold
1975; color
Directed by Charles Bail
Starring: Tamara Dobson, Stella Stevens, Ni Tien, Norman Fell & Albert Popwell
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Although Tammy Dobson made only a handful of films, her lead turn in the two Cleopatra Jones movies cements her position as one of the queens of soul sinema. For the action-packed sequel, the scene shifts to Hong Kong and Macao, where Cleo's fellow undercover agents Matthew and Melvin (they're brothers; also back from the first movie) find themselves being held prisoner by the Dragon Lady, a lethal, sword wielding lesbian drug lord / casino owner played by Stella Stevens. Cleo arrives on the scene and within minutes finds herself kicking ass in the wrong side of town. Before we go any further with the plot, let's get to what's really important - the fact our heroine manages to kick approximately two dozen guys' asses and look like a supermodel doing it. (I'd take Pam Grier over her any day of the week but she is definitely freaky-deaky beautiful.) As if Cleo doesn't stand out enough being the only black chick in Hong Kong, she carries her 6'2" frame like a seven-footer and literally dwarfs every other person in the film. Come to think of it, watching her do all kinds of martial arts stuff with guys two-thirds her size looked only slightly less out of place than Kareem Abdul Jabbar squaring off with Bruce Lee in Game Of Death. Anyhow, Cleo hooks up with a local private detective named Mi Ling, her brother, and their motorbike riding posse (they're actually all P.I.s) and they all go off in search of Matthew and Melvin. The ladies go to the Dragon Lady's casino (the conveniently named Dragon Lady Casino), and start scoping out the place under the guise of Cleo cleaning up at roulette. As they're leaving, a female employee of the Dragon Lady tries to set up a meeting with Cleo (claiming she will help them find the brothers; who she's been assigned to watch) and winds up with a bamboo spike through her tongue for her trouble. Soon enough, Mi Ling creates a well-timed diversion back in the casino and she and Cleo wind up freeing Matthew and Melvin anyway. As they make their escape, the girls manage to get out but the brothers end up in an attic, having a martial arts throwdown with a few dozen of Dragon Lady's men. Cleo and Mi Ling jump off the roof and the final 20-minute-plus non-stop-action sequence begins. With motorcycles, machine guns and various other incendiary devices, Cleo, Mi Ling and crew attack the casino, mowing down row after row of the Dragon Lady's armed guards. As all this is going on on the ground floor and working it's way up through the building, Matthew and Melvin are fighting their way down from the attic. Many bullets and one climactic swordfight later, the smoke clears and the only ones left standing are the good guys—as if you couldn't guess. Personally, I would've hung in there for a third installment in the series; the second entry was definitely superior to the first.
—the Kommandant
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