The Lady Assassin (1983)

The Lady Assassin (1983)
Aka: Assassin’s Revenge
Chinese Title: 清宮啟示錄
Translation: Apocalypse of the Qing Palace

 

Starring: Lau Wing, Leanne Lau Suet-Wah, Max Mok Siu-Chung, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, Jason Pai Piao, Ku Feng, Daisy Cheung King-Yu, Yuen Tak, Yeung Ching-Ching, Kwan Fung, Wong Mei-Mei, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Tony Lou Chun-Ku, Sun Chien
Director: Tony Lou
Action Director: Yuen Tak, Poon Kin-Kwan, Choi Chung-Wing

 

The Lady Assassin is a bit misleading for this late-period Shaw Brothers action extravaganza. There is technically a female assassin in the film, but she’s not the main character, nor does she even earn that moniker until the last 10 minutes of the movie. Instead, this movie is a more ambitious (if unfocused) account of the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who ruled China from 1722 to 1735. For a while, I thought this might make for a good prequel to the Flying Guillotine films, and then you get to the final scene and you’re like, “Uhh…maybe not.”

The Kangxi Emperor (Ching Miao, of The Sword and the Lute and Golden Swallow) is dying and is looking for a successor among the numerous princes. One test that he has given his sons is to give them some pet mice and ask them to care for them. The only one who has passed the test is the 14^th Prince (Max Mok, of Holy Flame of the Martial World and Once Upon a Time in China 2); the other princes have let their mice die because…well…they’re too important to care for rodents or something. That is, except for the 4^th Prince (Lau Wing, of Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon), who hasn’t been around. In any case, the Kangxi Emperor thinks that the 14^th Prince will be a good emperor and gentle to his subjects.

Unfortunately, the 4^th Prince covets the throne and starts sending assassins after his brother. Fortunately for the 14^th Prince, hid bodyguard is a super-talented swordsman named Tsang Jing (Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, of Duel to the Death and Wing Chun), who is more than a match for the 4^th Prince’s guards and servants. When the 4^th Prince is unable to buy Tsang’s collaboration, he gets himself a super-powerful martial arts bodyguard of his own, Min Geng-Yiu (Jason Pai Piao, of Demon Strike and Action Tae Kwon Do). Min is both arrogant and ambitious, and together he and the prince forge a partnership to guarantee the latter’s ascension to the throne.

Shortly before the death of the Emperor, Min Geng-Yiu employs the services of a famous scholar named Lui Liu-Liang (Ku Feng, of Dynamo and Vengeance!), who is known for writing about the mistreatment of the Han People by the Manchus. The 4^th Prince promises Lui that he will decree better treatment of the Hans by the Qing nobles if he helps out. So Lui has his niece, Lui Si-Niang (Leanne Lau, of Bastard Swordsman and Little Dragon Maiden), steal the Royal Decree naming the next emperor so that her uncle can change the lettering, so that the 4^th Prince is named instead of the 14^th Prince. All goes according to the plan, at least at first.

Some time goes by—the film isn’t very good at establishing time jumps—and Lui Liu-Liang is upset that the new Yongzheng Emperor hasn’t made good on his promise to decree better treatment of the Han Chinese. Although the Emperor has tried, his advisors have convinced him that equal treatment of the Hans will inevitably lead to rebellion, so he reneged on his word. At about the same time, Tsang Jing tries to assassinate the Yongzheng Emperor, but fails. This ultimately leads to the 14^th Prince getting sent into exile, where he is eventually executed. Min Geng-Yiu takes the deposed prince’s place as the Royal General.

Ultimately, Lui Liu-Liang and his cohorts try to plan a rebellion (or at least another assassination attempt) against the emperor, but thanks to the Emperor’s new ninja secret service, that will only end in tragedy…

Despite the fact that the climax hinges on an assassination attempt that probably never occurred, in which Japanese ninja used all sorts of trickery and sleight-of-hand to defend the Qing Emperor, there is a lot of historical material here, probably more than the Flying Guillotine films. For example, there really was a tight race between the 4^th Prince and the 14^th Prince (and two other princes) to succeed the Kangxi Emperor. As it happens in the film, the 14^th Prince, Yinti, was indeed promoted to the rank of General and sent to fight in NW China. That rank was also stripped from him and subsequently given to Nian Gengyao (Jason Pai Piao’s character), as happens in the movie.

Moreover, there has indeed been a dispute as whether or not the Royal Decree actually named the 4^th or the 14^th Prince as the new emperor. Some legends suggest that the Yongzheng emperor had indeed altered the Decree, as does happen in this movie. The legend is that the Chinese character for “ten” (十), was changed to 于, which means “to”. That would have left the character 四 (“Four”) by itself and referred to the Fourth Prince. That is exactly what happens in this film.

The film also tells of the fall from grace that the Yongzheng’s bodyguard, General Nian Gengyao suffered. In the film, Nian is relieved of his post when the Emperor is dismayed to learn that his soldiers don’t answer to Imperial decrees, but to General’s orders and his orders only. In both the film and real life, Nian’s demotion was met by no actual penitence on the former general’s part. In the film, Nian is demoted to a guard at the city gates, at which point he just disappears from the film. In real life, he was forced to commit suicide.

Not based on fact was the relationship between the Yongzheng Emperor and Lui Liuliang, a real-life scholar known for his anti-Qing rhetoric. The real Liuliang had been born at the end of the Ming Dynasty and lived to see its fall to the Manchus. But that was long before the Yongzheng emperor was even born. When Lui Liuliang passed away, the 4^th Prince was only five years old! Nonetheless, there is an interesting story in which a man tried to start a revolutionary movement based on Lui’s writings. After the failed revolution, the Yongzheng ordered the desecration of Liuliang’s corpse, the execution of one of his sons, and the enslavement of his female relatives. That said, it’s the rocky relationship between these two historical figures that ultimately gives this film it’s title.

Despite kung fu movies and traditional wuxia being a little passé in 1983, the Shaw Brothers still had lots of talent working for it in the action department. Here we have choreography from a young Yuen Tak, one of the Seven Fortunes who studied at the same school as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Joining him is Poon Kin-Kwan (best known for his work on Stephen Chow movies like God of Cookery) and Choi Chung-Wing (The Long Road to Gallantry and The Master). Their work here feels like a transition between the wuxia choreography of Tong Gaai of that same period, and the wired-up hijinks that would become popular in the 1990s. In fact, Yuen Tak was a pioneer in wire-fu when he worked on Dragon from Russia (1990).

There are a lot of fights in the movie, with a number of epic two-on-one and one-on-one duels. The action comes early with a crazy assassination attempt on the 14^th Prince, broken up the arrival of Tseng Jing, who takes on the two masked assassins by himself. That is followed shortly afterward by an insane one-vs-many fight as Tseng Jing fights off an entire courtyard full of soldiers. Not long afterward, there is a long hand-to-hand fight between the 4^th Prince and Nin Gengyiu, which features some fantastic open-handed shapes combat from both Lau Wing and Jason Pai Piao. A later assassination attempt on the Yongzheng Emperor has Norman Tsui fighting Lau Wing (both are armed with swords), who’s joined by Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, who’s wielding a kwan do. There are several other fights that I won’t mention…

…except the finale, because it’s so crazy and insane. The titular assassin and her cohorts, played by Sun Chien (of The 5 Deadly Venoms) and Yuen Tak, make an attempt on the Emperor’s life, but have to deal with a Japanese ninja warrior (the director himself) and his entourage, who are decked out in shiny gold ninja outfits. They fight with swords and fabrics and shuriken and giant boomerang shuriken and all sorts of craziness ensues. By the of the fight, at least two people get sliced in half, one longitudinally and the other latitudinally. It’s pretty crazy.

All of the actors do a great job with the action, which is mainly swordplay. Even Sun Chien, who was mainly a tae kwon do expert, fights with a pair of hook swords (and a few of his famous kicks). Leanne Lau (or her stunt double) stuns in her fight scenes and she puts on a great display with the sword, as does the always dependable Norman Tsui. There is a lot of wire assistance, prefiguring the revolution that the 1990s would bring to Hong Kong martial arts. People who don’t like “unrealistic” action might be turned off by this, not to mention some undercranking which is present in a number of the set pieces. The choreography on the whole, however, is just phenomenal.

There are some fundamental flaws to the story. Both Max Mok’s and Jason Pai Piao’s characters disappear from the film with little fanfare. And Tseng Jing is constantly flocked by a pair of attractive female fighters. I was expecting them to participate in the climax, too, given the circumstances leading up to it. They just disappear from the film with no explanation, too. Nonetheless, the story itself is intriguing enough and the action thrilling enough to merit this a recommendation.