A Girl Called Tigress (1973)

A Girl Called Tigress (1973)
Original Title: 雙面女煞星
Translation: Double-Faced Female, Evil Star

Starring: Polly Shang-Kuan Ling-Feng, Yasuaki Kurata, Kam Kong, Shan Mao, Cheng Fu-Hung, Blacky Ko Shou-Liang, Lung Fong
Director: Wang Hung-Chang
Action Director: Gam Ming (Tommy Lee), Leung Siu-Chung

Polly Shang-Kuan Ling-Feng participated in pratically all of the different sub-genres of martial arts movies of the old school period, from 60s wuxia pian to kung fu comedies. In 1973, Polly starred in a series of basher movies, including the Golden Harvest production Back Alley Princess, which turned out to be her most successful film. Four of these basher movies paired Polly with Japanese martial artist Yasuaki Kurata. I still have not seen Lady Whirlwind and the Rangers, but as of now, A Girl Called Tigress is probably the best of the others.

Polly plays Miss Hsi, a young lady who has shown up in some Republic-era Chinese town. After looking around and stopping at the local restaurant for some hot buns, Hsi is set upon by the lecherous locals...because film experience has taught me that it never did pay to be a beautfiul woman in Republic Era China. The locals try to flirt with her, but she beats the hell out of them instead. She runs into more of them outside of town later on, and kicks the shit out of them again. The second, however, she is joined by a stranger (Kam Kong, of The Crane Fighters and Thou Shalt Not Kill...But Once), who also is good at kung fu.

The stranger kindly invites her back into town and offers to pay for her hotel room. The hotel owners react strangely to her presence there, however. One of the employees slips her a roofie and informs the local crime boss, Chow Kun (Yasuaki Kurata, Tiger vs. Dragon and The Angry Guest). Chow Kun arrives at the hotel and has the sleeping Hsi whisked away to his house. This is where things get interesting: Hsi is a dead-ringer for Chow's girlfriend (also Polly). The latter denies it, although we know she surely recognizes the girl.

It doesn't take long to figure out what is going on. Hsi and the other girl are twin sisters. The latter ran way to be with her boyfriend, but eventually ended up as Chow Kun's girl. Their dad is dying, but the sister is too embarrassed to return home. The stranger is actually a detective on the heels of some riches stolen from a bank a few years back. Long story short: the sister's then-boyfriend stole the money at about the time she absconded with him and hid the money on the territory of a second crime boss (Chao Chiang, The Bride from Hell and Heroine Susan). Chow Kun killed the boyfriend, unbeknownst to the sister, and shacked up with her. Miss Hsi proposes a switch between her and her sister so the latter can leave and visit her dad on his deathbed, but Chow Kun is a possessive bastard...

A Girl Called Tigress is a low-budget production. The sets are minimal. The costumes are basic. It encapsulates why both Hong Kong and Taiwan had switched over to bashers almost completely by 1973: the overhead for producing them was far less than the wuxia pian both territories had been making. The plot is perfunctory. It even throws in a quick flash of boobs (not from Polly) for good exploitation measure.

But the action is terrific. The fights were staged by Gam Ming aka Tommy Lee, who was still early in his career here--known mainly for his collaborations with Chan Sing up to this point. Gam also worked with Polly Shang-Kuan on Lady Whirlwind and the Rangers. Joining him is Leung Siu-Chung, who had worked with Polly and Kurata-san on both Seven to One and A Gathering of Heroes. There are a number of dust-ups in this film, including a handful of fights between Polly and A Bunch of Thugs, including a lengthy bout at Kurata-san's mansion. Taiwanese regular Shan Mao and a young Blackie Ko show up as fighters working for Kurata-san's rival, and the latter shows off some nice kicks in his fights. Kam Kong, who had trained under Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, gets a chance to fight mainly with his legs, which he didn't always do in his movies. He's not a bad kicker, and his larger size gives his kicks more "oomph!" than some of his contemporaries.

The finale is one of my favorite old school fights, especially by early 1970s standards. Kam Kong and Kurata-san go at it for several minutes at a railroad/mine. Kurata's shito-ryu karate gets a great showcase, with fast reverse punches and high kicks. There is some brief weapons work in the form of them two men swinging pick axes at each other. Kam is eventually dispatched, leaving Polly Shang-Kuan to pick up the slack. Shang-Kuan had black belts in both karate and Taekwondo and gets to show off her strong punches and kicks like few other movies, especially once they started focusing on more comic and camp elements. As a pure showcase for Polly's training, few of Polly's movies compare to her demonstration in A Girl Called Tigress, especially the long finale. She once said that Bruce told her "If I'm the dragon, then you're the phoenix."  From a straight action point of view, A Girl Called Tigress places Polly alongside Angela Mao and Chia Ling as one of the great divas of the 1970s.