Legendary Weapons of China (1982)

Legendary Weapons of China (1982)
Aka: Legendary Weapons of Kung Fu
Chinese Title: 十八般武藝
Translation: Eighteen Martial Arts

 

Starring: Lau Kar-Leung, Hsiao Ho, Kara Hui Ying-Hung, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Lau Kar-Wing, Chu Tit-Wo, Wong Ching-Ho, King Lee King-Chu, Alexander Fu Sheng
Director: Lau Kar-Leung
Action Director: Lau Kar-Leung, King Lee King-Chu, Hsiao Ho

 

Nineteen Eighty-Two turned out to be the last great hurrah for traditional kung fu and wuxia films. Oh sure, this was the year that Mainland China finally entered the game with the popular Shaolin Temple, setting the template for the old school wushu movie for the rest of the decade. But audience tastes in Hong Kong quickly changed to more modern action fare, best exemplified by the works of Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. Even those period fantasy movies that did well locally tended to feature more special effects than their predecessors, like Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain and A Chinese Ghost Story. Few, if any, old school kung fu movies made from 1983 until the genre’s final death knell in 1985 actually made any money. But from December of 1981 until the end of the following year, filmmakers gave us some of the very best films they had to offer.

Case in point, Legendary Weapons of China. With few exceptions, Lau Kar-Leung was cranking out one masterpiece after another once he hit his stride in 1977. Even his lesser movies up to this point, like Return to the 36^th Chamber and The Deadly Mantis, have more than their fair share of fans. Legendary Weapons… is regarded as a classic by many, an all-time classic by some, and by a select few—including Hong Kong movie expert Ric Meyers—the absolute best of the genre. I personally would not go that far, but it is unique little film.

Set in the final years of the nineteenth century, Legendary Weapons… concerns itself with the infamous Boxer Organization. We open with a Qing official (Wong Chi-Ho) visiting the Boxers to follow up on their progress. The Sect is divided into three clans: the Martial Artists (led by Sword Stained With Royal Blood’s Chu Tit-Wo); the Maoshan Magicians (led by The Odd Couple’s Lau Kar-Wing); and the Spiritual Boxers (led by Lee King-Chiu and Gordon Liu). The former are well-trained fighters, and are obedient enough to their leader that they’ll even blind or castrate themselves at his order without question. The Maoshan clan practice a form of sorcery not unlike voodoo, where the user can hypnotize people with his eyes and control them with dolls. The final group are practicing both martial arts and qigong, which has rendered them invulnerable to bladed weapons, although not to Western firearms.

The official informs the different clans that a member of the Boxers, Lei Kung (who will be played by Lau Kar-Leung), had been sent into another province to open a local branch. Apparently, Lui simply disbanded the branch and went into hiding. The different clans are ordered to send one of their number to the province to eliminate him…and then commit suicide afterward. The Martial Artists send Tien Hao (Mad Monkey Kung Fu’s Hsiao Ho) to do the job. Meanwhile, the head of the Maoshan Sect himself, Lui Yung, accepts the challenge. Finally, the Spiritual Boxers send Ti Tan (Gordon Liu), of the Earth Sect, to assassinate Lei Kung. At the same time, Fang Shau-Ching (Kara Hui-Ying of The Martial Club) of the Heaven Sect also sets out to look for Lei Kung.

Apparently, none of the clans were informed about the others’ participation, so when they all arrive at the province capital, they all start fighting. Meanwhile, Lui Yung pays the local charlatan (Alexander Fu Sheng in an extended cameo) to impersonate Lei Kung in hopes of drawing him out into the open. This grabs the attention of Tien Hao, who has an extended fight against the magically-controlled charlatan. Tien gets sick after falling into a pond that is used as the community toilet, and is taken in by the local woodsman, Uncle Yu. Yu turns out to be Lei Kung, who left the Boxers after growing tired of watching his compatriots die in faulty magic ceremonies that failed to render them bulletproof. It is only a matter of time, however, before the other assassins learn of his whereabouts.

Legendary Weapons of China is an interesting film about the Boxers, whom older Americans might be familiar with from the film 55 Days at Peking. They had already been the subject of the Shaw Brothers films The Boxer Rebellion and The Spiritual Boxer. Surprisingly enough, the former dealt little with the Rebellion itself and more with the charlatanism that preceded it, followed by the cruel retribution dealt by the foreign powers afterward. This movie is probably set around 1897 or so, a couple of years before the infamous revolt. We learn a little bit about who the Boxers were before focusing on the main plot of the different parties searching for Lei Kung.

The first half of the movie suffers from a lack of focus. Had the movie spent a little more time depicting life among the Boxers before Tian Hao and Fang Shau-Ching, our nominal main heroes, depart in search of Lei Kung, the film would have been better. We would have had a greater understanding of that particular movement and episode in history and a more in-depth discussion of their internal politics. Instead, we get a series of comic fights with the opposing parties hurling projectiles—sleeve arrows, iron stars, darts—at each other for twenty minutes. Then, that is interrupted by the real pace killer: the Alexander Fu Sheng cameo.

The film stops for twenty full minutes for a pair of comic sequences in which Alexander Fu Sheng and his cronies stage a phony fight in a public street, using all sorts of sleight-of-hand and special effects to simulate a duel between rival spiritual boxers. While the scene is visually creative, it also runs far too long for what is tangentially-related at best to the proceedings. This is followed by a prolonged fight sequence between Tian Hao and the phony Lei Kung, who is being manipulated by Lui Yung’s Maoshan magic. The troublesome part about the sequence, besides its length, is that it clashes with the theme of the movie, which is that the Boxers’ phony magic led to so many innocent dupes getting needlessly killed. Lui Yung’s voodoo-esque powers and hypnotic abilities are portrayed as being more or less the real deal. Once again, it makes for some interesting visuals, but it is a case of Lau Kar-Leung wanting to have his cake and eat it, too.

The movie gains some of its footing in the second half, but then suffers by switching protagonists. Suddenly, Lei Kung is pushed into the foreground and dominates the film’s biggest set pieces. Meanwhile, Fang Shau-Ching, whom we learned left the Boxers for the same reason Lui did, drifts off into the background to become the troupe’s cheerleader. Tien Hao remains relevant, as he is soon forced to choose to take a side between those to whom he swore allegiance and those who are in the right. Nonetheless, once the finale rolls around, he is pushed into the sidelines as much as Fang Shau-Ching is, as it is Lei Kung’s show first and foremost.

Most of the film’s reputation comes from a series of fights that constitute the film’s last half hour. Lei Kung first must face off with Ti Tan, a former Shaolin monk turned spiritual boxer within the organization. It starts with Ti Tan fighting Tian Hao and Fang with his pole (legendary weapon #1) while the latter uses the jian, or two-edged straight sword (legendary weapon #2) and the former uses all sort of blades hidden in his sleeves and pants. Lei Kung then gets involved and the two go at it using Southern Chinese kung fu styles, notably hung gar. Much like his came in Shaolin Mantis, Gordon Liu practices the Iron Head technique, and repeatedly tries to head butt our hero. Ti Tan is also a qigong master, which has left his body almost impervious to damage. Lau Kar-Leung has his character use hung gar tiger forms to pry his bones apart (not as violent as it sounds) in order to break his concentration and leave him vulnerable.

While the titular weapons are used briefly in the aforementioned duel, the rest are saved for the last two fights. In the pentultimate scuffle, Lau Kar-Leung throws down with Shaw Brothers veteran Chu Tit-Wo, who plays Tian Hao’s master. Lau’s Lei Kung character starts off fighting with the rope dart (legendary weapon #3), while Chu replies with a number of secret weapons (much like Tian Hao). Afterward, Lau switches to the tiger’s head hooks (or hook swords, for short—legendary weapon #4) while Chu fights back with a long-handled axe (legendary weapon #5). Tian Hao steps in and faces his master with a pair of melon hammers (legendary weapon #6), before Lau Kar-Leung finally subdues him with the halberd (legendary weapon #7).

The final fight is generally considered to be one of the best fight sequences of all time, and is generally considered to be the best martial arts weapons duel of all time. Lei Kung fights with his brother, Lei Yung; the two characters are both brothers in the film and in real life. Lau Kar-Wing and Lau Kar-Leung were both masters of hung gar. While Kar-Wing often worked with the Shaw Brothers in supporting roles and as the occasional fight choreographer, he had spent most of his time in Taiwan or on independent ventures in Hong Kong. He had most famously teamed up with Sammo Hung in the late 1970s for a series of classics like The Odd Couple and Knockabout. Watching the two men square off in a fight of this nature was a rare treat indeed.

The fight starts with Lei Yung charging with the shuangdao, or twin broadswords (or sabers—legendary weapon #8), while Lei Kung defends himself with the kwan do, or long-handled broadsword (legendary weapon #9). As the Chinese sabers were single-edged blades, and thus good for slashing, watch as Lau Kar-Wing does a lot of tumbling and swinging at leg level. When Lei Kung is disarmed, he switches over to the jian, which Fang had already used two fights before. While both characters’ weapons may be called “swords” by the uninitiated, notice how Lei Kung’s jian skills feature more thrusting and jabbing blows than his brother’s saber attacks. Lei Yung is eventually disarmed and switches over to the qiang, or red-tassel spear (legendary weapon #10).

The two continue sparring until they both disarm each other in close quarters, at which point Lei Kung switches over to the chain whip (legendary weapon #11) and Lei Yung whips out a pair of daggers (legendary weapon #12). This section of the climax is particularly special for a few reasons. For one, the chain whip is not a very common weapon to see in kung fu movies, even of this vintage. Also, although knives and daggers had been common in kung fu and wuxia films for years, we do not often get to see them performed with traditional forms. Moreover, as the daggers are short weapon and the chain whip is a flexible weapon, any fight involving them would require the greatest of skill of both actor and choreographer to pull off believably. Thankfully, Lau Kar-Leung and his team are up to task here. The fight goes until Lei Yung decides that his weapons are too short to break past the chain whip’s defenses, and switches over to the tonfa, or nightstick (legendary weapon #13), to disarm him.

At this point, both men switch to long weapons. Lei Kung uses the Monk’s Spade (legendary weapon #14), a polearm with a crescent-shaped blade at one end and a spade-shaped blade at the other. Meanwhile, Lei Yung uses a more traditional pole. While the former is arguably more powerful, it is also heavier and less flexible than the pole. Lei Yung manages to rid Lei Kung of his choice, who follows it up with the Tiger Fork, or trident (legendary weapon #15). The Tiger Fork is one of the principal weapons of the hung gar style, and thus would have a special place in the Lau Family curriculum. The prongs of the fork allow Lei Kung to trap and wrench the pole out of Lei Yung’s grasp, so he arms himself with a rattan shield (legendary weapon #16) and a butterfly sword (legendary weapon #17). Realizing that a long, ungainly weapon like the trident is not the best choice, Lei Kung puts it down and fights with the three-section staff (legendary weapon #18). The flexibility of the weapon is enough to defeat Lei Yung—Ti Lung would do something similar against a shield-wielding opponent in Opium and the Kung Fu Master two years later. The fight ends with a brief bout of fisticuffs before Lei Kung is declared victor.

There is some question about what constitutes the 18 weapons according to the film. In some books, the fist itself is considered one of the arms of wushu, or Chinese martial arts. That would bring the total up to 19. But then, as the butterfly sword is simply a variation of the dao, or broadsword, one might question its inclusion and the number drops back down to 18. On some lists, the bow-and-arrow is considered to be one of the weapons of wushu, and the weapon shows up briefly in the opening credits and during the Alexander Fu Sheng cameo. If Lau Kar-Leung had intended that weapon to be part of the 18, then we would now stand at 19 again. But once more, the kwan do is also known as the long-handed broadsword, and thus may be considered by some ot simply be a variation of the dao. If you see it that way, then the 18 weapons would be: the broadsword (plus two variations: the butterfly sword and kwan dao); the straight sword; the pole; the spear; the rope dart; the hook swords; the axe; the halberd; the melon hammers; the monk’s spade; the tonfa; the chain whip; the dagger; the rattan shield; the trident; the three-section staff; the bow-and-arrow; and the fist. Or one could ignore those last two items and include the variant weapons above.

Legendary Weapons of China is far from perfect, but those last three fights are indeed classics. Whether or not one places them on their all-time top kung fu movies list will depend in large part how they process the first half of the movie. The action itself is top-drawer and perfectly suited for the last great year of kung fu movies in Hong Kong. And even more special is that once the action really gets going, the violence is surprisingly restrained. Much like some of Lau’s other films, the main conflicts are resolved without anybody getting killed. I just wish that the first half had been more focused.