The Woman Avenger (1980)

The Woman Avenger (1980)
Aka: Fatal Claws, Deadly Kicks; Killa Bs
Chinese Title: 師妹出馬
Translation: Sister and Sister

 

Starring: Hsia Kwan-Li, Peng Kang, Wang Chi-Sheng, Hsieh Han, Shih Ting-Ken, Yu Chung-Chiu, Tai Chi-Hsia
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Peng Kang

Although I can't say that this film was one of Tarantino's inspirations for Kill Bill, it does bear a number of similarities in the plot. It's a very low budget kung fu film directed by one of Taiwan's greatest directors, Lee Tso-Nam, and starring second-string femme fatale actress, Hsia Kwan-Li. It's a pretty good film whose raison d'être is to show off all of Hsia's many physical talents.

The movie begins with a married couple riding down a road while talking about their future. They're stopped by a group of bandits wearing masks, who are interested in something the husband is carrying with him. A fight breaks out and the husband is killed while his wife is raped by one of the bandits and left for dead.

Some time later the young lady wakes up in the care of a Shaolin nun, who found her and took care of her. Upon learning that the nun knows kung fu, she begs the nun to teach her. The nun is reluctant, since the girl has made it clear that she wants to kill each and every bandit responsible for her husband's death. The girl is finally able to convince the nun to teach her, and she learns the Dragon Fist style.

She soon breaks her vow to not use her a**-kicking abilities to kill when she breaks up a fight between some poor shmuck and a bunch of robbers, killing one of them in the process. Goign into town, she dresses up like a man (not a very convincing one, either) and starts beating up as many bandits as she can get her hands on. This catches the attention of a portly waiter, who just happens to be studying kung fu with one of the bandits from the beginning.

While hanging around the kung fu school where the waiter practices, the girl discovers that they're on to her (well, him). She challenges one of the guys to a duel and kills him. The guy turns out to be the son of one of the original bandits. The father appears and she fights and kills him, too. She then appears to the waiter's kung fu teacher in female dress and kills him, too.

The girl (still dressed as a man) goes undercover at a brothel to ferret out the fourth bandit. He's on to her and in the resulting fight, she gets beat down and only lives because another woman shows up and rescues her. The girl turns out to be the daughter of the kung fu master of the fifth and main bandit, a blonde-haired kung fu master. The latter woman decides to teach our heroine how to kick like mad, preparing her for the film's final fights.

This is a very lean kung fu film that establishes the main conflict in the first five minutes and dedicates the rest of the running time to either training, fighting, or setting up the next fight. As another reviewer of this film said, there's no moralizing, romance, intrigue, comic interludes or anything else like.

The film belongs to Hsia Kwan Li, who really steals the show. For most of the early fights, she uses hand techniques and a bit of acrobatics against her opponents. She has a nasty tendency to break multiples limbs on her opponents before delivering the death blow. In the climatic fights, she unleashes a barrage of flexible kicking that's very reminiscent of the stuff Jackie Chan's aunt (Linda Lin) did in the first Drunken Master. It's really good.

The main villain is played by Peng Kong, who also was the film's action director. He looks pretty good in action, too. His choreography is occasionally too acrobatic and synchronized, but it's some really solid femme fatale fighting. There are some weapons thrown in, including the butterfly swords, shuangdao (double sabers), short spears, and long spear. The final set piece, where the two women take on the fourth and fifth bandits is very good, especially to people like me who like superkickers.