Eunuch of the Western Palace (1979)

Eunuch of the Western Palace (1979)
Aka: Flying Fists; Royal Family
Chinese Title: 白馬素車勾魂幡
Translation: White Horse Car Hooking Soul Banner

 

Starring: Mang Fei, Don Wong Tao, Doris Lung Chun-Erh, Lo Lieh, Lung Fei, Tsung Hua, Li Hsin-Hua, Su Chen-Ping, Weng Hsiao-Hu
Director: Wu Ma
Action Director: Chan Long, Huang Fei-Long, Hsiao Huang-Long

Wu Ma was never a great director. It might even be a little charitable to call him a “good” director. Most of the time, he was a competent, if uninspired director. Most of his forays into “good” territory were those movies in which he collaborated with his mentor, Chang Cheh. His solo affairs, however, tended to rest mainly on the strength of the cast and talents of the action director. Thus, movies like The Dead and the Deadly and Kickboxer enjoy cult status mainly because of Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, respectively. While Eunuch of the Western Palace has a solid Taiwanese cast and a provocative opening, it quickly slips into a mundane “rebels vs. tyrant” story and does nothing interesting with it.

We begin with a five-minute documentary about the history of eunuchs in China and what their function in Chinese society was—mainly to serve the women in royalty without any worry the two parties getting sexually involved. The narrator points out that the Bible also mentions eunuchs—most notably, a servant of the Queen of Ethiopa whom was converted to Christianity by the disciple Phillip—as a way of establishing that it was not simply a Chinese phenomenon. We are then “treated” to a supremely uncomfortable scene: a reenactment of the ceremony that produced new eunuchs. In it, we see little boys stripped naked (the camera does not shy away from their genitals) and tied to an altar, at which point the genitals are sliced off (!) with a fearsome-looking blade and the wound is cauterized with a brand. The narrator states that the freshly-mutilated boys had to fast for seven days: if they survived, they would begin their training.

We then start our story proper, which purports to be the tale of real-life eunuch Wang Zhi, who rose to power during the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Wang Zhi (Tsung Hua, The Drinking Knight and Call to Arms) is oppressing the population and controls the Information Bureau, which means that there is nothing going on in the empire that he does not know. We open with a man and wife couple of sword fighters getting ambushed by Wang Zhi’s men. Despite the interference of a wandering fighter named Li Tin-Chin (Don Wong Tao, of Iron Swallow and Ten Shaolin Brothers), the couple are murdered, but not before the lady gives our hero a letter and tells her to pass it on to a trio of kung fu fighters.

Those fighters are Ku Shin-Shu (Meng Fei), the Killing Flag (Doris Lung), and Invincible Sword (Wang Man-Chuan of Along Comes a Tiger). The three receive the letter and head off on their way, while mysterious guy Li Tin-Chin just lurks in the shadows and shows up to get into a fight or two. Meanwhile, Wang Zhi’s men are on the alert, looking for rebels and killing them, trying to get any evidence that will reveal who’s involved in conspiracy against the eunuch. At one point, Ku Shin-Shu is injured and nursed back to health by Lung Fei, whom we know is an agent for the Eunuch.

Ku Shin-Shu’s blind trust for the agent results in one of the rebel movement’s leaders getting captured and tortured by the Eunuch. So Li Tin-Chin and others lead a daring raid on the palace to rescue him. But before they can get him out of harm’s way, the Eunuch sends a super-powerful kung fu master (Lo Lieh, of Shaolin Executioners and Heroes of the Wild) to block our heroes’ path. Will they be able to save the rebel movement and depose the evil Eunuch?

Eunuch of the Western Palace could have been a unique martial arts film steeped in Ming Dynasty intrigue, staging its martial arts bouts around the complex political machinations that would allow a servant to the court to surpass the Emperor in actual power exercised. But we do not get any of that. Instead, this film plays like a third-rate rip-off of Dragon Inn where the heroes just run around dodging or fighting the Eunuch’s agents until it is time for the climax. We do not even get to see much in terms of actual oppression: the characters talk more about how oppressive the Eunuch is than show it.

The story we do get is not particularly well told, either. In the movie, the main villain is conspiring with the Japanese to overthrow the government and take power to himself. But if he already is practically running the show with impunity anyway, is there really a need to get foreign entities involved with the power grab? Or how about the fact that the heroes have a bunch of agents running with fake letters, while the real one is tattooed on the back of one of the organizers…the same one who gets captured and tortured. Did no one thing to strip the man before torturing him? And how to the enemy agents always know where the heroes are? And where are the heroes going and why are they there in any given scene. The film feels like random scenes of our protagonists walking around or meeting up, with no real rhyme or reason to them.  

Despite boasting three action directors—Chan Long (My Life is the Line), Huang Fei-Long (Shaolin Deadly Kicks) and Hsiao Huang-Long (Three Shaolin Musketeers)—the action is rather perfunctory and at times, uninteresting. It does not help that at least two major fight scenes are filmed at night and the VHS transfer renders those fights almost unwatchable. A lot of the fights are short, with the only sustained fights coming at the end. But even so, Wu Ma unwisely skimps on the action, a kiss of death for a kung fu movie whose plot is as murky as this one’s.

The best fight sequence is the finale, in which Don Wong Tao walks into a snow ghost town to deliver a message to the Eunuch. He is ambushed by a dozen or so lackeys dressed up ninjas who are armed with sabers and spears. He kills them all before facing off with a Japanese fighter armed with razor-sharp cymbals. Then, it’s hand-to-hand combat with the Eunuch, who fights with a set of interlocking gold rings. Meanwhile, Meng Fei shows up to fight with Lung Fei, who wields a chain whip. The latter is a weapon that gets little fanfare in kung fu movies, even older ones, so it’s a welcome edition. Sadly, both Doris Lung and Wang Man-Chuan are absent from the climax.

Most the action revolves around weapons fighting, which would lead me to classify the film as a wuxia and not a straight kung fu movie. Meng Fei is armed with a pair of scimitars, while Doris Lung fights with a retractable iron spear. Wang Man-Chuan and Don Wong fight mainly with swords, as do most of the extras and stuntmen. Lo Lieh is wasted in a supporting role as a fighter with tuberculosis—he spends much his limited screen time coughing up blood—but gets two fights, including a decent one against our four heroes near the end. His character and limited fight action gives this film a shot of adrenaline whenever it threatens to go moribund, which unfortunately, is far too often for a movie like this. And for a movie that starts out as interesting as this one does, that’s a huge let down.