Clan of the White Lotus (1980)

Clan of the White Lotus (1980)
Aka: Fists of the White Lotus
Chinese Title: 洪文定三破白蓮教
Translation: Hong Wending Breaks the White Lotus Sect

 

Starring: Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Lo Lieh, Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Lam Fai-Wong, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, King Lee King-Chu, Yeung Ching-Ching, Hsiao Ho, San Sin, Ching Miao
Director: Lo Lieh
Action Director: Lau Kar-Leung

 

By the time 1979 had rolled to a close, Lau Kar-Leung had demonstrated that striking out on his own as a director was the best career decision he could ever make. Starting with 1977’s Executioners of Shaolin, he had proceeded to make one masterpiece after another—save his follow-up to his freshman effort, The Spiritual Boxer. Clan of the White Lotus was released on the very first day of 1980 and bears his watermark, even if he was officially only working as the action director. Despite Lo Lieh being credited as the director, this is very much a Lau Kar-Leung film and deserves to be spoken of with the same tones of reverence reserved for Heroes of the East and The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin.

The movie more or less picks up where the Executioners of Shaolin leaves off. We start off with a retcon of the finale of that film, in which Hong Wending (this time played by Gordon Liu) is facing off against Pai Mei (this time, it’s The Victim’s Wilson Tong instead of Lo Lieh). He has a helper this time, in the form of Wu Ah-Biu (King Lee King-Chu, a member of Lau Kar-Leung’s action team). With Hong’s tiger claw and Wu’s crane’s beak, they are able to ferret out Pai Mei’s weak point and kill him.

An unspecified amount of time later, the local governor (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei of The Martial Club and Invincible Shaolin) had received an imperial edict declaring that the ban on Shaolin martial arts has ended, that all layman disciples should be released from prison, and that work on rebuilding the temple must be allowed to commence. The governor doesn’t really like that idea, nor does his uncle, the head of the White Lotus Clan (played by Lo Lieh, who plays him like he played Pai Mei in Executioners of Shaolin). So the two conspire to have their men slaughter as many Shaolin disciples as they can.

Among the dead are Wu Ah-Biu, who had gotten arrested at some point but was now a free man, and his sister, Wu Siu-Ching (Yeung Ching-Ching, who eventually went on to be a fight choreographer in the Royal Tramp and Bride with White Hair films). Only Hong Wending and Wu’s widow, Mei Ha (Kara Hui Ying-Hung), survive the massacre and they go into hiding at a basket factory. From here on out, Hong Wending will spend the rest of the movie training in different styles in order to prepare himself for his battle with the White Lotus Chief.

On the surface, this is a redundant fight fest. The plot is largely is circular: the hero faces off with the villain, loses, trains, faces off with the villain, etc. In less capable hands, that would be bad storytelling, not to mention would be tedious to the viewer. Thankfully, director Lo Lieh and action director Lau Kar-Leung add a few layers to the story by making the whole exercise a reflection on the difference between “hard” and “soft” styles—compare Gordon Liu’s direct, strength-based tiger-crane technique with Kara Hui’s more wushu-esque women’s style. Against most opponents, the former is more than adequate for the job. However, against a nigh-invincible opponent like the White Lotus Chief, sheer brute force is not the answer.

What’s particularly interesting is how the action evolves with Hong Wending’s training. During his initial confrontation with the main villain, Wending uses his patented tiger claw[1] against him because his comrade is too injured to use his crane style effectively. When he starts training for revenge, Hong’s first instinct is to combine the two styles into a single technique, now that his friend is no longer around. However, their second duel reveals that the White Lotus Chief has advanced his kung fu so much, and has such vast control over his on qi, that he can control his body weight and “float away” from powerful blows. Thus, Wending must now learn more about soft kung fu styles in order to simply get a single blow in.

But that’s not all. During their third encounter, Wending is able to hit the White Lotus Chief, but his unable to hurt him. And that’s where we learn that the Chief has concentrated all of his body’s energy into a single point, called a “pulse” in the movie. Unlike Pai Mei in Executioners of Shaolin, whose weak point was located in one of the basic striking points (i.e. the top of the head, throat, eyes, groin, solar plexus, etc.), the location of the White Lotus Chief’s pulse is a lot more obscure. So to prepare for the final showdown, Wending must study acupuncture in order to learn more about the different places where his adversary’s pulse might lie. That just adds an extra layer to the action; the hero must continuously magnify his skill set in order to defeat the ultimate evil.

Where the action tells a layered story of its own, it is infinitely enhanced by the dynamic choreography of Lau Kar-Leung, assisted by frequent collaborators Hsiao Ho and Lee King-Chiu. When Gordon Liu first storms the White Lotus Monastery and takes on dozens of opponents armed with swords, before facing off with perennial Shaw Brothers heavy Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, the tiger claw Liu performs constitutes one of the fastest and most powerful examples of the art, right up there with Chen Sing’s performance in The Himalayan. In a lesser film, this fight would make a great climax as it were.

Knowing full well that a second fight with Pai Mei in the same locale may be dismissed as “more of the same” by some viewers, Lau Kar-Leung gives it its own identity in two ways. On one hand, there is the addition of Gordon Liu’s soft style. More importantly, replacing the one-on-many fight concept that preceded the previous duel is a one-against-two fight with Pai’s bodyguards (one of whom is played by Hsiao Ho), who wield jian, or two-edged straight swords. The choreography on display is extremely complex, as Gordon Liu bobs and weaves his way between two people stabbing at him with swords simultaneously.

The final fight is broken into two parts. In the first part, Liu faces off with the bodyguards a second time, who now use their sword scabbards as elongated handles for their weapons, swinging them like a traditional pudao, or horse-chopping blade. The uninitiated may not be fully impressed, but it is a clever and subtle way to add a bit of variation to the proceedings. Gordon Liu fights them off with a chain whip, a weapon that doesn’t get enough attention in movies, mainly because it’s very difficult to choreograph well. Liu makes his using the weapon look effortless. The second part has Gordon Liu fighting off Lo Lieh with acupuncture needles, much like Jet Li’s Kiss of the Dragon, but far more elaborate.

In the end, Clan of the White Lotus is another notch on Lau Kar-Leung’s masterpiece belt, even if he did not direct it. As an action director, he would have worked directly with Lo Lieh in how to stage and portray the action, in addition to deciding which moves to use and how they should be executed. Considering the quantity of action in the film and approach to martial arts philosophy that it takes, it’s safe to say that it is Lau’s film as much as it is Lo’s. And for that, this film is indeed one of the Great Ones.

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[1] - This is another retcon from Executioners of Shaolin, as that film suggests that Hong Wending never perfected the Tiger Style, but excelled in the Crane style because of his mother’s training him.