Ma Su-Chen Takes Revenge (1988)

Ma Su-Chen Takes Revenge (1988)
Chinese Title: 馬素貞複仇記
Translation: Ma Suzhen: Avenge Record

 

Starring: Li Yun-Juan, Kwok Wai-Ping, Wang Jian-Guo, Lin Ji-Fan, Li Xiang-Chun
Director: Shen Yao-Ting
Action Director:

 

In eary 1972, the Shaw Brothers released what would become one of their bloodier classic martial arts films, The Boxer from Shantung with Chen Kuan Tai. Telling the story of real-life boxer Ma Wing-Jing (mandarin: Ma Yongzheng), the film is most notable for its long and brutal finale where Ma takes out an entire gang…while sporting a hatchet rammed into his gut! That same year saw a low-budget Taiwanese take on the same material, Furious Slaughter, starring “martial arts” legend Jimmy Wang Yu. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Well, the story of Ma Yongzheng goes beyond his untimely demise. Apparently, Mr. Ma had a sister, Ma Suzhen, who was just as a good a fighter as he was, if not better. She apparently headed out to Shanghai after receiving news of her brother’s murder and kicked some kung fu ass in his name. Interestingly enough, no fewer than four films were made about her between 1972 and 1973. Two of those, Queen Boxer and Heroine Susan, Sister of San-Tung Boxer, were essentially unofficial sequels to The Boxer from Shantung, complete with recreations of that’s films famous climax. Ma Su Chen was a sequel to Furious Slaughter, made that same year. Finally, there was Brave Girl Boxer from Shanghai, which starred a young Doris Lung and had a typical (for the era) anti-Japanese bent to it.

Ma Su-Chen Takes Revenge, a late 80s film from the People’s Republic of China, is interesting in that it doesn’t follow any existing film on Ma Yongzheng. Instead, it focuses on the lead character’s search for revenge while telling the story of her brother through a few prolonged flashbacks.

The film opens with our heroine (Li Yun-Juan, of In Sword We Trust) learning of her brother’s assassination and vowing revenge. She takes a train over to Shanghai, where she falls in with Master Chai (Li Xiangchun), a leader of the Shandong Association and close associate of her brother’s. She learns from him that his brother had gotten involved in a conflict between some peasants and a local criminal named Bai La Li (Du Jifan—amusingly, the character for “Li’ in the villain’s name means “diarrhea”). Bai La Li was hired by the Europeans from the Shanghai international zone to force the locals to sell their homes for pennies on the dollar so they could build a race track. Ma Yongzheng stepped in and fought off the thugs, thereby signing his death warrant with the foreigners.

What really gets Yongzheng on Bai La Li’s sh*t-list is when he and his colleagues storm Bai’s wedding—to his fourth concubine, a singer who has fallen for Ma—and beat everybody up and steal away the bride. She ends up getting killed, while Bai hires the Axe Gang, led by Cheng Zimin (Lin Rongcai, of Secret Imperial Edict), to deal with Ma Yongzheng. They ambush him at the Shandong Association, throw lime in his eyes, and then chop him down with axes.

Ma Suzhen’s first order of business is to dress up as a Western gentleman and show up at Bai La Li’s place, pretending to sell opium. Bai figures out who she is and invites “him” to a guy’s athletic club where he tells “him” to get undressed. She refuses to, which leads to a fight between her and Bai’s men. She gets injured, but is ultimately rescued by Master Chai’s son.

After she recovers, she once again assumes a disguise—this time as a Qing guard—and visits the local jail where Yongzheng’s best friend, Bao Qing, is being held (he’d been framed for Ma’s murder). After learning more details about her brother’s dealings, Bao is killed by an unknown assailant before he can tell her who the traitor within the Shandong society is. But what she does know is that the Axe Gang is involved.

So, she dresses up as a man once more and goes to the local brothel and orders a room with Chen Zimin’s favorite prostitute. When he shows up for his nightly dinner-and-a-f*ck, Ma appears out of the shadows with revenge on her mind. He makes a deal with her to hand Bai La Li and he reveals to her the name of the traitor that has gotten in the way of her assassination attempts. After confronting the traitor, it’s time for some revenge!

This may be the weakest of the Ma Suzhen films overall. The film is slow paced, which shouldn’t be a problem, considering the general simplicity of the Ma Suzhen story: she shows up in Shanghai, cracks a few heads, finds out who’s responsible for her brother’s murder, and cracks some more heads. This film does give us a bit more meat by going over her brother’s story—which was my complaint about Heroine Susan, that it could have been the third act of a larger film about the Ma family--while introducing the subplot of a traitor amongst Ma Yongzheng’s friends. I just felt that the action itself did not compensate the overall pacing of the movie: Ma Suzhen doesn’t get her first fight until about 30 minutes in and the climax was a bit of a let down in the martial arts department.

What the film does to set itself apart from the other four movies about the personage is that it tries to follow history, namely setting the story in the Qing Dynasty and throwing in the detail about Ma Yongzhen involved in horse racing. The other films were set in the Republic Era, probably in the 1920s. I also liked how cunning Ma Suzhen is portrayed as being, using trickery and disguises in addition to her martial skills.

The action isn’t good enough in quality or quantity to make up for the movie’s pacing issues. Actress Li Yun-Juan is a solid martial artist and has some pretty good kicks. However, her fight scenes are hampered by some unremarkable hand techniques and unnecessary wire-aided moves. The actor who plays Ma Yongzheng is pretty good. He also has a helper who busts out some Drunken Boxing during the wedding fight. The weapons—sabre, pole, and knife—are just okay. Nothing particularly flashing or interesting about those, which is disappointing, considering this is a Mainland film.

There’s a big group melee near the end where Ma Suzhen and some others try to assassinate Bai La Li at a Opera concert. The fight almost resembles a Jackie Chan, mixing comedy (mainly some shameless mugging whenever someone gets hit in the head) with violence. One guy pulls out a pair of nunchaku and does an impressive demonstration before Suzhen just takes him out with her trusty bullwhip. She does that again in the finale, which is sort of disappointing. Once Upon a Time in China IV had some interesting over-the-top action involving a whip, but here, it’s just her standing, cracking the whip, and cut to some guy falling down. It’s not very interesting. The finale has some fun Tarzan-esque swinging-on-banners fighting, but the final showdown with Bai La Li is a letdown. You had some good fighters here, but they are let down by the film’s action director, who should have done more and better things with their abilities.