Friday, March 11, 2022

Great Shanghai 1937 (1986)

Great Shanghai 1937 (1986)
Chinese Title大上海1937
Translation: Greater Shanghai 1937

 


Starring: Chui Siu-Kin, Do Yuk-Ming, Dung Chi-Wa, Lau Lai-Gwan, Suen Yee-Man, Muk Lap-San, Lok Woon-Yau, Ku Wing-Chuen
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Directors: Fan Dung-Yue, Do Yuk-Ming, Dung Chi-Wa, Chui Siu-Kin, Ku Wing-Chuen

 

The last handful of movies that Chang Cheh did, from the second half of the 80s until 1993 when he bowed out of filmmaking with Ninja in Ancient China, appear to be Mainland China/HK co-productions, and very low-budget ones at that. I guess that has to do in part with the fact that the production company, Sil-Metropole Organization, was still in its fledgling stages at that point. Well, probably both that and the fact that Chang Cheh probably hadn’t had a box office hit in a while, so I can’t imagine them wanting to risk a lot of money on a man’s whose forte had ceased to be profitable three years prior.

Despite not having a lot of money at his disposal, Chang Cheh still had lofty ideas and he did his darndest to bring them to life with this period intrigue actioner, even if it didn’t really turn out that way in the end. Great Shanghai 1937 deals with the Japanese occupation of China at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which essentially bled into WW2. There are three major Triad bosses in Shanghai: Tu (Do Yuk-Ming, who would later go to appear in Little Big Soldier and White Vengeance), Cheung (Wong Ming-San) and Ng. Tu leaves town and moves to Hong Kong to avoid having to deal with the Japanese, while Cheung and Ng sell their souls and prefer to ride the enemy’s nuts, if you catch my drift.

Meanwhile, there is a band of patriots out there who go around assassinating important Chinese men who they deem to be traitors to their country. The best assassin in Lam (Chui Siu-Kin, who was in Chang Cheh’s other films from the same period), who happens to be the former protégé of Tu. One evening, he carries out an attempt at a Peking Opera performance, but things go awry and he is injured. He flees the scene and ends up at the house of a fruit seller who used to know his mentor. The man and his daughter, Yuan Yue (Suen Yee-Man, who was also in Chang Cheh’s Cross the River), both nurse Lam back to health.

After recovering, Lam and his group of merry patriots are given the instructions to assassinate both Cheung and Ng because of their colluding with the Japanese. They plan to strike at a dinner, where the head of the patriots is acting as a translator. The assassination hits a snag in the fact that Cheung’s men are better marksmen than the patriots are…and better kung fu experts, too. So Lam takes it upon himself to avenge his brothers and wipe out the traitors, starting with Cheung’s four bodyguards…

To summarize my thoughts on the film, there are far too many characters included in the film’s rather brief 83-minute running time. This is one of those films where subtitles (albeit not English ones) appear on screen whenever a new character is introduced, even though said character may ultimately have a negligible effect on the outcome of the movie. Complex relationships between characters who may or may not have a history are hinted at, but never developed. One of the top-billed actors is Dung Chi-Wa (best known as the staff-wielding baker in Kung Fu Hustle), who plays Yeung Fan, “The Knife.” But his character mainly skulks around in the background until the end, when he teams up with the hero for no discernible reason to fight the bad guys. There’s supposed to be a love triangle between him, Yuan Yue, and Lam, but it pops up only in the last act and doesn’t get much attention. Even worse, there are at least three flashbacks in the movie that really aren’t that important—they reveal the backstory of some of the supporting characters—that should’ve been ignored in favor of developing the characters who do play an integral part in the proceedings.

What saves this film from being a total waste is the action, choreographed by diverse members of the cast, all of whom were Mainland martial artists. There isn’t a whole lot of fighting compared to many of Chang Cheh’s Shaw Brothers’ films, and you can see the influence of Chang’s protégé John Woo with the inclusion of a lot of stylized (if low budget) gunplay. Unfortunately, Chan and his action team don’t show the same aptitude to gunplay as John Woo, Stephen Tung (A Better Tomorrow) and Ching Siu-Tung (Peking Opera Blues) did that same year.

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