The Angry River (1971)

Angry River (1971)
Chinese title: 鬼怒川
Translation: Ghost Fury

 

Starring: Angela Mao, Kao Yuen, Pai Ying, Raymond Lui, Han Ying Chieh, Chiang Nan, Fung Ngai
Director: Huang Feng
Producer: Raymond Chow
Writer: Huang Feng
Action Directors: Sammo Hung, Han Ying-Chieh
Special Effects: Chu Sheng-Shi

The Martial World in China, circa the Ming Dynasty, is having a little problem. You see, some rat bastard is going around and killing everybody with poison darts. Heck, even brides-to-be are being murdered in their sedans for apparently no reason whatsoever. So Mr. Lan, who runs the local fort, decides that enough is enough and invites all of the knight errants in the land to form a squad to bring down the son of jackal responsible. Okay, sounds reasonable, right?

Unfortunately for everybody, Mr. Lan himself soon becomes another rung on Poison Dart’s (as he’s known) belt, leaving the martial world with nobody to lead them against the seemingly invisible menace. Nobody, that is, except for his daughter, Lan Feng (Angela Mao, The Himalayan and Hapkido). Lan Feng consults with the fort’s physician and learns that the only way to heal the poison that the dart was laced with is to give her father the black herb. As it turns out, the only place in China where the herb grows is in Soul Valley, located at the other end of the Merciless Pass, itself located on the other side of the Angry River. I love these Chinese place names. Oh, and the Angry River is nothing less than 1000 miles from Lan’s current position. Being a good Chinese girl, filial piety is more important than one’s own life and soon she’s on her way.

Lan Feng is barely outside the forest that surrounds the fort when she’s attacked by a bunch of swordsman working for King Hell (who’ll be played later on by Pai Ying of Dragon from Russia and A Touch of Zen). Being plays Angela Mao, Lan Feng does the only thing she knows how to do: mercilessly slaughter the no-good thugs. Lan Feng eventually makes it to the Angry River, whose name derives itself from the fact that there’s apparently a thin layer of pure sodium hovering just a few millimeters above the surface of the water. Thus, anything that touches the water causes the sodium to touch the water as well, resulting in an explosion. Lan Feng makes it to the other side and is soon in Merciless Pass.

Why does it have that name? Because the bad-ass kung fu fighter guarding the entrance goes by the name of Lord Merciless (Chang I-Fei of The Blind Hero Defeating the Evil Wolf), that’s why. Joining Lan Feng is a Shaolin Monk (Fung Ngai, Lady General Hua Mulan and Eight Hundred Heroes) and a Wah Shan swordsman (the Wah School being the same school that the Swordsman films revolved around). Lord Merciless gives the Monk a sound thrashing and the Wah Shan guy figures that it’s best if he just cuts his losses and runs away like the wuss he is. Lan Feng decides to try her luck against Lord Merciless, and gets beaten down just like the monk did. However, Lord Merciless’s master is moved by her filial piety and allows her to go to SoulValley.

Arriving in Soul Valley, Lan Feng is accosted by ghosts and by Yongary, the Monster from the Deep. I swear I’m not making this up. Angela Mao really does have a brief skirmish with a bipedal theropod with a horn on its nose. She doesn’t win the fight, but the guy who guards the black herb ends up giving her some anyway, since she’s Angela Mao and all that. He also, however, destroys her kung fu, effectively making her a wuss and a spectator for the next act of the film. Thankfully, King Hell is an impatient man and decides to wipe out Angela’s friends and family while she’s out trying to not get herself killed by wandering bandits and the treacherous Wah Shan swordsman. So when she returns, she’s going to be rather angry. It’s a good thing that black herb will not only restore her powers, but double them as well. The best non-fighting scene in the film is an angry Angela Mao chewing on the herb, after which she starts glowing red and hitting holes in the wall with her palm (bear in mind that this movie was made before the classic Five Fingers of Death).

The Angry River is important for two reasons. One, it was the debut film for the fledgling Golden Harvest Studio. At the time, the studio to beat was the Shaw Brothers, who had all the talent, sets, costumes, what have you. Very good. However, the Golden Harvest had a few aces up their sleeves. For one, it wasn’t long before they had a fellow named Bruce Lee making movies with them. That really made a difference now, didn’t it? They also had the likes of Sammo Hung, the latter of whom started out as a supporting actor and fight choreographer and eventually became one of GH’s directors. Some of his 80s work would go on to become the biggest money-makers for Golden Harvest.

The other reason that this film is important is because of Angela Mao, who owns the screen with her trademark intensity. It’s pretty obvious that Golden Harvest initially tried to market Angela as the alternative to Cheng Pei-Pei. Thankfully, for all of this film’s merits, it was for the best that Bruce Lee blew everybody else out of the water, because it was his success that helped Angela to be marketed afterward as the Female Bruce Lee, a title that served her talents better than as the “Next Cheng Pei Pei.” The setback is that 30 minutes or so in which her character can’t fight and has to depend on others, especially co-star Kao Yuan (of the cult classic Calamity of Snakes), to protect her. It’s a bit of a cop-out and when she does become a sword-swinging diva at the end, it’s almost too little, too late.

Sammo Hung and genre veteran Han Ying-Chieh handle the action duties, as is par for the course in an early Angela Mao movie (the two also show up as the main villain’s bodyguards). The swordplay shows a strong chambara (Japanese samurai film) and Western swashbuckling influence, as if Chinese swordplay hadn’t yet come into its own in 1971. It’s fast and bloody, although without the balletic embellishments that’d define Chinese movie swordplay later on. Attempts to use wires are extremely awkward; Sammo is many things but a good wire-fu choreographer he is not. The kung fu fisticuffs are sparse and competent at best, as the genre in its Golden Age incarnation was still young at this point. Thankfully, Sammo and Han Ying throw in some nice exotic weapons, such as a Golden Coin Halberd, the regular Halberd, the Wind and Fire Wheels (which look like a pair of half buzz saws that the wielder uses for close-quarters combat), and the Zhuo, or Claw (which looks like a giant back scratcher). Plus, you know, they threw in a kung fu Yongary for good measure, too. Any movie with a kung fu Yongary can’t be it all bad, can it?