Shaolin Rescuers (1979)

Shaolin Rescuers (1979)
aka Avenging Warriors of Shaolin
Chinese Title: 街市英雄
Translation: Street Market Heroes

 

Starring: Kuo Chi (Philip Kwok), Lo Meng, Sun Chien, Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, Jason Pai Piao, Yang Hsiung, Yu Tai-Pang, Lau Shi-Kwong, Tam Jun-Tao
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Directors: Robert Tai, Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng

One thing that any kung fu fan, regardless of their genre preferences, must recognize and admire about the “Venom Mob” of the Shaw Brothers is that they were extremely prolific during their heyday, being able to churn out up to four or five movies per year. Unlike their modern cinematic equivalent, Steven Seagal, the movies they made were chalk-full of long, intricate fight scenes of the sort that’d take Jackie Chan three months to film. Seagal, on the other hand, makes a few movies per year, but with the sort of action that you could film in a couple of days if you wanted to, especially considering that the choreography in his movies is the same from film to film. Not the Venoms, however, They were always experimenting with new weapons, styles, or at least new twists on the old favorites. Few of their films, from The Five Deadly Venoms until their last unofficial movie, Ninja in Deadly Trap, are bereft of some memorable fight sequence, if not several.

Let’s take this movie for example. It was made in 1979, one year after their breakout hit, The Five Deadly Venoms. In 1979, the Venoms would release no less than four films: The Magnificent Ruffians, the fan favorite Kid with the Golden Arm; Shaolin Daredevils; and this movie. The Magnificent Ruffians holds its place in kung fu movie history for having apparently one of the greatest weapons duels ever filmed. Everybody loves The Kid with the Golden Arm for its eclectic mix of weapons, styles, and quirky characters. Shaolin Daredevils occasionally gets criticized for its lack of action, but few people can argue with its 20-minute-long climax set in a warehouse that is essentially the precursor for the sorts of fights that would litter action movies in the 1980s. That’s a pretty good track record for a single year’s output. Definitely better than what a lot of action actors are able to do per year.

And then there’s this movie, which also keeps the fights pretty low-key (albeit never without much downtime) until the huge climax. It can be argued that this film serves as something of a capstone on Chang Cheh’s Shaolin cycle, which started in 1974 with Five Shaolin Masters and would make up a huge portion of the movies he made until 1980. It’s set at the same time and in the same world as films like Men from the Monastery and Shaolin Avengers, but, instead of focusing on the big heroes like Fong Sai-Yuk (called by his Mandarin name Fang Shiyu in the movie) and Hung Hey-Kwun (called Hong Shi-Kwan and who is admittedly a major supporting character here), the movie focuses on a couple regular guys (well, not quite regular, them being kung fu bad-a**ses) who get caught up in a very epic struggle.

The movie begins with a rather low budget depiction of the burning of the Shaolin Temple; a bunch of bad guys fight against some of the surviving Shaolin laymen on a soundstage (which is very obviously a soundstage) with some simple structure burning in the background. One by one, the good guys are killed (including famed Shaolin monk San Te) until the only one left is Hung Hey-Kwun (Jason Pai Piao, Shaolin Intruders and Demon Strike). Hung takes on the infamous Pai Mei and his general (Lu Feng, Ninja Death and Flag of Iron), but is injured and escapes. This takes up the first few minutes of the movie, which then takes us to another town and introduces us to its main protagonists.

Those would be Lo Meng (Ip Man 2; Anna in Kung Fu Land) and Kuo Chi (Brotherhood of the Wolf and In the Line of Duty VI: The Forbidden Arsenal). The former is a super-strong laborer working for a bean curd seller and is secretly a master of the Souther Praying Mantis style. He’s also a bit dumb, but good-natured. The latter is a disciple of the Black Tiger style, which is an actual kung fu style from the North that, unlike the Southern Tiger styles, is more about acrobatics and flashy moves than the simple, clawing attacks we see from actors like Gordon Liu or Chen Sing. Kwok works as a waiter at a local restaurant and is friend’s with Lo; the two are always sparring wherever they go and often dine at the restaurant after it closes. One evening they’re eating dinner when they get on the subject of what they want to do with their lives and they come to the conclusion that they’d be willing to give their lives to be heroes, or at least be a part of something big. That, my friends, will be the theme of tonight’s movie.

We’re eventually introduced to our third “regular” protagonist, a dye worker (Sun Chien, Angry Ranger and Invincible Shaolin) who studies at one of the local kung fu school. Evidently, the school’s specialty is preparing its students to fight in situations that are EXTREMELY unlikely to happen in real life, but always show up in these kung fu movies. To be more specific, the school trains its students to fight while balancing on wooden poles. That’s fine if you’re trying to develop your sense of balance, but considering that none of the students end up being very good in a fight and Sun Chien’s character only gets the upper hand when he’s able to convince his opponents to follow him onto the poles, the teacher would’ve been better off with something more practical. So Sun’s character is picked on by both his teacher and his colleagues, despite the fact that he’s clearly the most talented pupil at the school. He finds a little solace in his friendship with Lo Meng and Kuo Chi.

All of this takes up about the first thirty minutes of the film, after which the writer remembers that there was another thread established at the beginning of the movie. An injured Hung Shi-Kwan finds another group of patriots, including the famed Fang Shiyu, who give him a prescription for some special medicine for his wounds and tell him to look for an Opera Troupe leader (who will be played by Chiang Sheng, Nine Demons and Shanghai 13), whose boat is anchored in the local harbor. Shortly after Hung leaves the hideout, the same place is raided by Pai Mei and his men, who promptly kill everybody, including Fang. What is notable about this scene is that the way in which Fang is slain is the same way he dies in Shaolin Avengers and The Men from theMonastery. To give the uninformed reader an idea: Legend has it that Fang Shiyu was, as a child, boiled in a special bath of herbs, which granted him complete immunity to any sort of blow, be it from a fist or from weapons. He did, however, have an Achilles’ Heel: his poop chute. Thus, when he bites it, it’s especially uncomfortable to think about.

Hung Shi-Kwan meets up with another friend, played by Wang Li, the so-called “Sixth Venom.” It’s while they’re talking that they’re cornered by the General and his men. Wang sends Hung away, staying behind to fight off the General and his men until he ultimately loses his life. At this point Hung arrives in the city, and seeks shelter at the school Sun studies at. The master, whom we’ll learn later is in cahoots with the the government, sends Hung away. After a brief restaurant encounter with Kuo, Hung passes out in public and is rescued by Lo, who takes him into his room at the bean curd store and tends to him. The prescription for his medicine is expensive enough that Lo and his friends soon have to resort to stealing in order to buy enough doses to save him. He eventually gets better, but by this point, Sun’s kung fu school rival has found out their secret and has ratted them out to the General. The three friends, Hung Shi-Kwan, and the Opera Troupe leader all escape and head back to the school to teach the local master a lesson in patriotism. They then hole themselves in the school’s courtyard for the evening, while the General sends one of his top assassins to mobilize the local garrison for back up. The next morning, the General and his men storm the courtyard and our big climax begins.

For most of the first two acts, Avenging Warriors of Shaolin plays like two entirely different films, one consisting of the three good Venoms and their kung fu horseplay, the other consisting of Hung Shi-Kwan and his flight from Manchus (led by Pai Mei). It’s about an hour into the movie before the threads finally meet up; until then, we’re given an attempt by Chang Cheh to do what Jackie Chan had made so popular the year before (i.e. acrobatic kung-fu comedy) with a lower-budget version (i.e. one could argue that Jason Pai Piao is second-string compared to Chen Kuan-Tai and the actors who play Fang Shiyu and Pai Mei certainly are not of the same caliber as Alexander Fu Sheng and Lo Lieh) of what Chang Cheh AND Lau Kar-Leung had done already (Han patriots against the Manchus who burned the Shaolin Temple). Granted, it’s all very entertaining, but it’s nothing we really haven’t seen before in other movies. The big twist in the Hung Shi-Kwan plot thread is that the role of Pai Mei has been reduced to that of a cameo. To those of you who are unfamiliar with Chinese kung fu history (or whose only exposure to Pai Mei has been through Quentin Tarrantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2), Pai Mei was a high-level monk at Shaolin who left the temple to form his own sect. According to some legends, he sold out to the Manchurian government and participated in the “purging” of the temple, being responsible for the death of a number of important kung fu stylists, including Hung Shi-Kwan himself. That particular legend is the subject of Lau Kar-Leung’s classic Executioners of Shaolin (let me note here that people who practice the Pai Mei style don’t believe that he was a traitor). In any case, Pai Mei only shows up in two scenes and then disappears from the film, leaving Lu Feng to take the spotlight as the film’s formidable villain.

Speaking of Lu Feng, he apparently won a Best Actor Award for his performance as the general, which sort of mystifies me. I mean, he sells himself well as a ruthless villain with absolutely no concern whatsoever for the people whose lives he and his men are taking, but the truth is that Lu Feng has played that role (or variations of it) so much that it’s not really much of a stretch for him. Invincible Shaolin and Five Deadly Venoms were far better displays of his acting, especially since in the the former he’s not really the villain, even though he’s a target of the main protagonists. That said, Lu Feng acquits himself quite well in the fight department and, once he picks up the kwan do in the finale, his display of prowess goes from “solid” to “absolutely wonderful.” The man is a straight-up demon with the kwan do, a weapon he has used in numerous films, including The Magnificent Ruffians; The Shaolin Daredevils (where he does kwan do techniques with a shovel); and Sword Stained with Royal Blood. He really sells the idea that he could take on four armed men simultaneously, his skills are that refined.

Philip Kwok and Lo Meng, who had such great chemistry in The Five Deadly Venoms and The Crippled Avengers, get to work the same magic again. Once again their relationship has a changed; in the former they were two righteous friends and in the latter, the fact that one was blind and the other was deaf/mute made them compliment each other quite well. Here, they play kung fu master friends, Lo Meng being the slightly-dumb one and Philip Kwok playing the more arrogant Jackie Chan type, although like Chan, Kwok is able to play it likably without making us want to hit him. Their chemistry helps drive the first half while their characters remained divorced from the main conflict. Of course, their skills are not to be forgotten. Lo Meng, who was trained in chow gar, or Southern Mantis, give us another showcase of his style and, to top things off, gets to do some solid work with the three-pronged fork (or trident) at the end. It’s been written that Lo Meng didn’t get a lot of roles in the later Venom Mob wuxia films because he wasn’t able to perform weapons chores, but here he makes a good enough showing for himself that I wonder if said affirmation isn’t inaccurate. Philip Kwok uses the Northern Black Tiger style, which he also would use in the later Rebel Intruders. He mixes it up by fighting with benches, stools, bowls, and finally, the Tiger’s Head Hooks.

The other two Venoms, Chiang Sheng and Sun Chien, get less of a showcase here, especially Chien. Chiang Sheng plays the righteous troupe leader who’s job is to smuggle Hung Shi-Kwan to safety, but after a brief appearance in the first hour, he doesn’t after anything to do until the last act, where he gets involved in a restaurant brawl alongside Philip Kwok before participating in the climax. Chiang almost always played a very likable and acrobatic type, sort of like a Taiwanese Yuen Biao. Here he isn’t given much room to show off his charisma, although his acrobatics and weapons skills are on full display at the climax. Sun Chien gets to show off his acting skills playing put-upon student who has to watch the good guys eradicate his schoolmates, much like he did in Invincible Shaolin and The Five Deadly Venoms, but his tae kwon do kicking is very downplayed, which is this film’s major flaw. That, to be honest, is the big flaw of most Venom Mob films: Sun Chien’s kicking is never utilized as much as it should be. The Five Deadly Venoms; Invincible Shaolin; Rebel Intruders; and Kid with the Golden Arm all gave us brief, but brilliant glimpses into the man’s talent. This film, however, gives us very little to look forward to, except a demonstration of his sense of balance while fighting atop the poles. I’m big fan of fancing film kicking, which has endeared me a lot to Sun Chien. That’s why it breaks my heart to see so many films with him promise to let him give an exhibition of his talents on the level that most of Donnie Yen’s, John Liu’s, or Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee’s films did, only to give him a single fight scene or one that de-emphasizes his skills.

Rounding out the cast is Jason Pai Piao, a genre veteran whom I can’t help but wonder if he was casted on the grounds that he wore a mustache that made him look like Chen Kuan-Tai, who had defined the role of Hung Shi-Kwan during the 1970s. Pai Piao was a talented actor and fighter and, although this film doesn’t represent his best work, he does make a likable Hung Shi-Kwan and is a bit more likable than Chen Kuan-Tai’s Hung.

The choreography is provided by Robert Tai, assisted by Lu Feng and Chiang Sheng. Tai was the Venom’s main choreographer up until the end of 1979, when a dispute between him and Chang Cheh caused him to go Taiwan for more money and stranger movies, usually about ninjas. Robert Tai is considered a pioneer in field of wire-fu, which can be seen in his numerous loopy ninja movies. There’s none of that here; all of the action is acrobatic Peking Opera-style fighting and weapons work. As commented before, one gets the distinct impression that the Shaw Brothers Studio were under pressure by Jackie Chan’s success to put comedy into their films in order to continue competing, and thus the early fights are very Chan-esque in their presentation. Thankfully, the choreographers and actors themselves are up to task.

Assisting the Venoms in the action are a group of actors, most of whom have also shown up in Venom Mob movies, who play Lu Feng’s cohorts. Tam Jun-Tao (Cheetah on Fire and Rebel Intruders) plays Tiger Boy, who uses his fists and feet to great effect. Sadly enough, Tai seems to put more trust in him than in Sun Chien, because he kicks up more of a storm than Sun does (this would also happen in Rebel Intruders). Lau Shih-Kwong (Two Champions of Shaolin and Masked Avengers)plays his brother, Leopard Boy, who uses the metal ring, which is an awesome weapon which needs more attention in these movies. Yu Tai-Pang  (Five Element Ninjas and House of Traps) uses a rattan shield and a saber. Finally, Yang Hsiung (Heroic Fight and Island of Fire) uses the melon hammer, another exotic weapon that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention in these movies. I think the only movies that have gotten a lot of mileage out of that particular weapon are this, The Tai Chi Master; True Legend, and the Ninja Death movies.

The final blowout makes me incredibly giddy; I rank it up with Legendary Weapons of China and a few other films as one of the greatest demonstrations of Chinese weaponry on film. While there have been films with better choreography, few movies have had such a great collection of weapons used in a single set-piece: the pole, the melon hammer, the ring, the kwan do, the halberd, the hooks, the saber, the trident, the shield, and numerous found objects find their way into this blistering-long fight. It’s really a must-see moment. And at seventeen minutes, the fact that the final fight never gets boring is a testament to the ingenuity of the actors, the action directors, and director Chang Cheh for knowing how to draw out a fight so much without losing our attention.