My Rebellious Son (1982)

My Rebellious Son (1982)
aka: Raging Tiger
Chinese Title: 小子有種
Translation: You Have Guts, Kid!

Starring: Alexander Fu Sheng, Ku Feng, Tang Ching, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Cecilia Wong Hang-Sau, Ai Fei, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Tin Ching, Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Yuen Wah, Ng Hong-Sang, Wong Wai-Tong, Lee Fat-Yuen, To Wai-Wo, Kong Chuen
Director: Sun Chung
Action Director: Tong Gai, Huang Pei-Chih

My Rebellious Son was directed by Sun Chung, the man behind one of the all-time classics: The Avenging Eagle. He has a couple of other important films under his belt, like The Deadly Breaking Sword and To Kill a Mastermind. Unlike Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-Leung (and Chor Yuen after 1976), Sun Chung never allowed himself to be completely pigeon-holed into making just kung fu and/or wuxia films. When he did kung fu, he did it well…quite well…extremely well at times. But he also dabbled in true crime (Homicides– The Criminals, Part II); erotica (Dreams of Eroticism); and horror (Revenge of the Corpse). Heck, his other 1982 film, Human Lanterns was a mixture of horror and wuxia. My Rebellious Son ended up being his penultimate Shaw Brothers film, with him coming back to the studio for the low-budget follow-up to his own The Kung-Fu Instructor: The Master Strikes Back.

This movie revolves around a father-son pair of bone-setters (or physicians, for all practical purposes): Chang Tak-Tai (Ku Feng, of Dynamo and Bruce and the Iron Finger) and Chang Siu-Tai (Alexander Fu Sheng, of Heroes Two and Five Shaolin Masters). The art of bone-setting has long been a tradition of the Chang family and the general cycle is for dad to practice until he reaches old age, and then retire and enjoy life while his son takes up the mantle. The problem is that Tak-Tai has reached old age (he was 52 here, but he was a convincing old man 11 years prior, to be honest) and is still a spry, energetic man. That means that he is still running the family clinic while his son is still just an assistant.

Tak-Tai is also a very demanding man, constantly brow-beating his son for every little transgression. Even when Siu-Tai is late because he’s helping a Westernized Chinese girl, Judy Shum (Cecelia Wong, of Shaolin Mantis and Ol’ Dirty & the Bastard), his dad’s reaction is to berate him. So, there Siu-Tai loves and respects his dad, but often wants to put his dad into compromising situations in order to prove that he has what it takes.

For example, those dastardly foreigners and their Westernized Chinese sycophants have decided to prove to the locals that Western boxing, wrestling, and fencing is superior to Chinese kung fu. They manipulate the school run by Master Jiang (Walter Tso, of My Young Auntie) into participating in an exhibition match with a big bruiser (Dragon Force’s Randy Channell). Siu-Tai gives dad an extra dose of anesthetic in his tea in order to make his dad pass out and step in, accepting the duel on behalf of the Jiang school.

The main conflict involves the foreigners wanting to steal a gold statute of the Goddess of Mercy from the local temple to give to one of the rich Englishman. The Englishman is supported by local Western Athletics Gym, run by the rich official/brown noser, Mr. Tang (Tang Ching, of Wrath of the Sword and The Bloody Fight). His son, Robert (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, of Martial Club); Robert’s friend (Lam Fai-Wong), and the archetypical interpreter, Mr. Chun (Tin Chung), act as the enforcers for Chairman Tang and they are determined to steal the statue. But Master Chang is part of the “Buddha Protection Squad” and is always around to stand up for the villagers’ rights to worship the statue.

Robert and Mr. Chun decide to bring in a bunch of Japanese kendo masters, led by Yamaguchi (Michael Chan, playing a Japanese fighter like he did that same year in Five Element Ninjas). When Chang Siu-Tai tries to steal the statue himself in an effort to embarrass his dad and take his place, the Japanese fighters (dressed as ninjas) catch this and end up stealing it themselves. Will the Chang duo be able to recover the statue before it goes the way of so many other artifacts that fell into the hands of the British?

I found My Rebellious Son to be a fascinating movie. I had watched My Young Auntie just a week earlier and this film often feels like a gender inversion of that movie. Instead of the bumpkin girl and the Western-educated boy her age getting into hijinks, one of the subplots involves Judy Shum falling for Chang Siu-Tai after he gives her medical attention when she falls from a horse. The thing is, her Western ways are a mystery to him, so her actively seeking him out is practically an affront to his more traditional view of courtship. It does culminate in a kung fu dance sequence, made a year before a similar one was staged in The Champions and 14 years before Wu Jing mixed wushu and the Tango in Tai Chi II.

But more than that, this film completely felt like a partial sequel to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master. Moreso, it feels like an initial script for Drunken Master II, which came out 12 years later. Knowing that both Wong Kei-Ying and Wong Fei-Hung were herbalists/healers, it’s hard not to see that in Chang father-son duo. And you see the seemingly impossible task of the son trying to please his father, but his happy-go-lucky personality getting in the way at every turn. Add to that an external conflict of an Englishman trying to steal cultural artifacts—specifically a golden statue here—with the help of Western-educated and dressed Chinese toadies and it feels extremely similar to DM2. To be perfectly honest, I now consider My Rebellious Son to be Drunken Master Version 0.1. It would make for a fascinating experience to watch Drunken Master; this film; and then Drunken Master II in rapid succession.

The action scenes were staged by Tong Gai and his brother, Huang Pei-Chih. Those two had worked extensively with Sun Chung, especially once Sun had started focusing on martial arts movies in the second half of the 1970s. The fights are pretty good. The fight between Fu Sheng and Randy Channell is a nice mix of kung fu and boxing, not too dissimilar from the fights in Jet Li’s Born to Defence and Ip Man 2. There is a real good fight halfway through when a bunch of thugs attack the two Chang’s at their shop: kung fu, weapons (including the three-section staff), and zaniness is on display during this lengthy sequence. That is topped by prolonged fight between Fu Sheng and the Japanese masters (who include Yuen Wah), who ambush him with their katana blades. There is some great choreography in this scene.

The finale is a bit of a disappointment, although it feels like the inspiration for the bookending sequences of Jet Li’s Fearless. Fu Sheng must face with the foreign fighters in a succession of fights. It starts with Wang Lung-Wei’s Robert, using a more modern kickboxing style (which would soon become the style of the time). It moves onto John Ladalski (Inheritor of Kung Fu and Bloodfight), which fight is played for laughs. The next fight is with the Western fencer (Mimmo Gasbarri, of Ninja in USA and The Super Ninja) has Fu Sheng matching him with the jian, or two-edged straight sword. That is very much a Fearless thing. The same goes for the final fight, which pits Fu Sheng against the sword-wielding Yamaguchi, which also feels like Fearless. I really liked the choreography in these sequences (except for the John Ladalski segment), but since this set piece starts 10 minutes before the film is to end, each individual fight feels very short by genre standards.

I wouldn’t say My Rebellious Son is a great movie, but it feels like an inspiration for so many movies that came later—Drunken Master II; Fearless; Tai Chi 2; etc—and it does a good job on every aspect (fight direction, characters, etc.) that is should be watched by all fans.

Web of Death (1976)

Web of Death (1976) Chinese Title: 五毒天羅 Translation: Five Venom Heavenly Web

Starring: Yueh Hua, Lo Lieh, Ching Li, Wang Hsieh, Angela Yu Chien, Wang Chung, Lily Li Li-Li, Ching Miao, Ku Feng, Chiang Yang

Director: Chor Yuen

Action Director: Tong Gai, Yuen Cheung-Yan

Web of Death is the third movie that Shaw Brothers director Chor Yuen made in his second wuxia cycle, which would define the vast part of his output between 1976 and 1984. Most of the films he made were adaptations of stories written by famed wuxia novelist Gu Long, although this particular film was based on a story by Wong Ying. Wong Ying was a popular writer, albeit not quite up to the standard of his contemporaries, Gu Long and Jin Yong. He was younger than them, being born in 1956, which was when Jin Yong was serializing his first novel, The Book and the Sword. But the man was no less talented, as this movie adapted his work when Wong Ying was but 20 years old.

Of the three movies that Chor Yuen made in 1976—the other two being Killer Clans and The Magic Blade—this is considered the least of them. It has all of the hallmarks of a classic Shaw Brothers films: elaborate sets and costumes, a strong cast, decent fight choreography, coupled with a complex plot populated by lots of characters and martial arts clans to follow. Strangely enough, it is the action choreography that keeps this firmly rooted in “Good” territory, as opposed to “Excellent” or “All-Time Classic.”

The movie opens with a meeting of martial arts masters, who are met by the then-head of the Five Venoms Clan (Chiang Nan, of The Iron Bodyguard and Call Me Dragon). The man unveils his secret weapon: the “Five Venoms Spider.” This is a mystical little creature—played by a regular tarantula with a dubbed-in elephant call, that can shoot deadly, acidic webs at all people in a sizable radius. The spider kills all of the masters present, but later the man relinquishes the weapon, which is hidden away from all the martial world.

Several generations later, the Five Venoms Clan is having a meeting of the Chief (Wang Hsieh, of Heroes Two and The Secret of the Dirk) and his sub-chieftains. Liu Shen, the Snake Chief (Lo Lieh, of Clan of the White Lotus and Heroes of the Wild), points out that there is a martial arts tournament coming up and the winner will determine the best in the Martial World. The Five Venoms Clan has been on the decline these past few decades and both the Toad and Scorpion Leaders (played by Lu Wei and Tung Choi-Bo, respectively) have lost their territory to the other schools. Liu Shen suggests that they unearth the Five Venoms Spider and use it to win the tournament and restore the clan to its former glory. The Chief, however, forbids such things and ends the meeting right then and there.

We learn that Liu Shen is having an affair with the Chief’s wife (Cave of the Silken Web’s Angela Yu, in her last Shaw Brothers outing). Both are conspiring to kill the man so that Liu Shen can assume the leadership of the clan. They decide to start spreading rumors that the Five Venoms Spider has already been found in order to spur the other clans, led by the Wu Tang Clan, to action. In Liu Shen’s words, “We’ll have the righteous clans find it for us.”

The rumor-mongering works, and soon the heads of the different schools (Shaolin, Emei, etc.) are meeting at Wudan Mountain to discuss the weapon. The head of the Wu Tang school, Tian Suan (Ching Miao, of Five Tough Guys and Clans of Intrigue), designates his senior student, “Three Saints” Fei Yingxiang (Yueh Hua, of Green Dragon Inn and Dragon Swamp), to go to Shaolin to try to learn more about the rumors. On his way to Shaolin, he meets a girl dressed as a male beggar, who claims to know someone (who knows someone who knows someone) who knows about the Five Venoms Spider. She tells him to meet her at a nearby lake in 10 days. That girl turns out to be Hong Susu (Ching Li, of The Magic Blade and Killer Clans), the daughter of the Venoms Clan chief.

Hong Susu heads back to the Venoms Clan headquarters, where she discusses the matter with her father. He reassures that the Five Venoms Spider has indeed not resurfaced, as it’s hidden in a “forbidden” place. Hong Susu figures out that said place is the tomb of the deceased Clan leaders. Unfortunately for both of them, the chief’s wife is eavesdropping on their conversation and relays the information to Liu Shen. He comes up with the idea of making two maps and sending them to two different clans, and then spreading the rumor that said clans have a map to the weapon. 

The rumor reaches Wu Tang, and two students—Fei Jingyie (Wang Chung, of Police Force and Five Tough Guys) and Qiuxin (Lily Li, of Shaolin Mantis and Soul of the Sword)—are sent to investigate. They come across a bloodbath: one of the clans has been attacked by the Holy Fire Clan. Jingyie and Qiuxin intervene, but when the smoke clears, both clans have been wiped out. They take the map and head for the crypt, where they find the other clan has already arrived. Jingyie sends Qiuxin to find Fei Yingxiang and tell him what’s going on. When the other clan is massacred by the crypt’s traps, Jingyie sneaks in and makes his way to where the Five Venoms Spider is being kept. While leaving the tomb, weapon in hand, Jingyie is ambushed by Hong Susu (who doesn’t know who he is) and is poisoned by her Five Venoms darts. Once she realizes who her victim is, she hires the Golden Dragon Security Company to carry both the weapon (hidden in a crate) and Jingyie back to Wu Tang. But Mr. Xie (Chiang Yan, of The Flying Guillotine and The Spiritual Boxer) has made some underhanded deals with some very shady people…

There are a lot of twists and turns to the story, which is what makes it so fun. It does not get too convoluted, but there are a lot of plot complications that stem from mistaken identity, incorrect assumptions on the part of (otherwise righteous) characters, and just rash actions on the part of the main protagonists. The main villains are obviously motivated by ambition, but a lot of the bad things that happen to the main characters occur because of their own prejudice and envy. While the bad guys are definitely bad, the good guys have negative human qualities that keep them from making the right decisions, too.

All this talk of the Five Venoms Clan may make some readers wonder if this has anything in common with Chang Cheh’s classic The Five Deadly Venoms. Not really. This is a wuxia pian through and through, while The Five Deadly Venoms, for all its wuxia trappings, is a kung fu movie. That said, one may consider this to be a precursor (of sorts) to The Five Deadly Venoms, with the latter being set many generations later when the clan is in its death throes. The movie does have the feel similar to that of Kung Fu Cult Master (itself based on Jin Yong’s Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre), where you can switch “The Evil Sect” with the “Five Venoms Clan” and the “Great Solar Stance” and “Magic Stance” with the “Five Venom Spider.” So, if you liked the over-the-top quality to that Jet Li film, you might enjoy this.

To me, the action was the weakest aspect of the film. Tong Gai and Yuen Cheung-Yan are great choreographers for sure, and the swordplay exchanges are well done. But they are generally quite short and none of the fights really stand out in any way. Tong and Yuen opt to emphasize the supernatural aspects of the fighting, realized via practical effects. So be prepared for lots of smoke, sparks, flames, and cheesy spider web effects. Lo Lieh’s character wields a staff with a snake head at the end that shoots spark and flames at its opponents. Yueh Hua has a fight at the Five Venoms Clan hideout—which itself is covered with kitschy spider motifs—that is full of explosions of poisonous gas (i.e. lots of smoke bombs going off) and acid pools. And you can guess what the Holy Fire Clan uses in their fight scenes. So yeah, too much “smokes and mirrors” and not enough of the nitty-gritty fight choreography. Thankfully, everything surrounding the action is fun to watch, though.

Swordsman and Enchantress (1978)

Swordsman and Enchantress (1978)
Chinese Title: 蕭十一郎
Translation: Xiao Eleven Wolf

 

Starring: Ti Lung, Lau Wing, Ching Li, Candy Wen Xue-Er, Tang Ching, Lily Li Li-Li, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, Shum Lo, Ku Kuan-Chung, Yang Chi-Ching, Ting Tung
Director: Chor Yuen
Action Director: Tong Gaai, Huang Pei-Chih

Swordsman and Enchantress is another in a long line of convoluted wuxia films directed by Chor Yuen for the Shaw Brothers, drawing its inspiration from the works of writer Gu Long. Once again, Ti Lung stars as a bad-ass swordsman who gets in over his head in the machinations of different parties in the Martial World. The source material had already been adapted to screen by the Shaw Brothers as Swordsman at Large (1971) and would be adapted by a smaller Taiwanese studio at the same time as this one, starring local wuxia mainstay Roc Tien Peng.

The movie begins with an expedition dump from a trio of extraneous characters, played by Lily Li, Norman Tsui and Shum Lo. We learn that an important figure in the Martial World, Xu Ruzi (Tang Ching, of Bat Without Wings and Rendezvous with Death), is retiring and is handing over a legendary sword, the Deer-Cutting Blade, over to the fighter he deems to be the best. He has chosen Lian Chengbi (Lau Wing, of Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon) for the honor.

While en route to Lian’s manor, the sword is stolen by a mysterious fighter named Little Lord (Candy Wen, of Two Champions of Shaolin and Sword Stained with Royal Blood) defeats the escorts and makes off with the weapon. She tells them that the person responsible is Hsiao, as in Hsiao Eleven Wolf (i.e. the character alluded to in the film’s Chinese title). Hsiao is played by Ti Lung, and he makes his first appearance in a later scene when the Little Lord shows up with the intent of kidnapping Lian Chengbi’s trophy wife, Chen Bijun (Ching Li, of Killer Clans and Web of Death). Hsiao saves Chen and he whisks her away to his abode where he nurses her back to health. The two slowly start to fall for each other.

When Hsiao resolves to take her back home, the two meet up with Lian and his entourage at an inn, where the two men duel. Hsiao wins but declares it an unfair victory, promising to fight Lian at another time. When Chen discovers that her husband had thus dealt unfairly with Hsiao, she runs away from home. Lian finds Hsiao recuperating from a wound at the house of the amorous Lady Feng (Lily Li) and the two men duel once more. Lian comes out on top, but declares it an unfair victory because of Hsiao’s health. They agree once more to duel again when both are in tip-top shape. Hsiao eventually finds Chen and the two flee from Lian and his retainers, eventually taking refuge in a mysterious hole in the wall known as the Puppet Villa. Things really get screwy from there.

While at its heart, Swordsman and Enchantress is a simple movie about a love triangle and corruption, the movie itself is anything but simple. As one might expect from a 500-page novel condensed into an 86-minute feature film, there are far too many characters to follow, and motivations to understand, and that is not even counting all of the fantasy tropes associated with the wuxia genre that Westerners may find off-putting at first. The movie moves at a lightning pace, barely giving viewers a chance to catch their breaths before the next sword fight breaks out. Characters show up, disappear for long swaths of time and then reappear out of nowhere.

Ti Lung stands out once more as Hsiao Eleven Wolf, a lovable rogue who fancies himself a bandit but is actually an honorable martial artist. While his rival, Lian, suffers from a bout of jealousy early on, he also turns out to be an upright person concerned mainly with doing the right thing. He eventually realizes that Hsiao is not his enemy, but that the machinations of Little Lord are part of something bigger and more sinister, and is willing to fight by his adversary’s side for the sake of what is right. The triangle is rounded out by Shaw Brothers starlet Ching Li as Cheng Bijun, a beautiful woman by any metric who is drawn into the violent world of the jianghu by forces that may very well be beyond her control.

The rest of the characters are quirky lot, even if most of them barely get two scenes worth of screen time. The most striking is petulant-but-fierce Little Lord, played to the hilt by Candy Wen. Miss Wen by her very nature had a visible mischievous side to her, which she parlays well into the role of a character who is causing lots of upheaval in the Martial World, but without any initial rhyme or reason. Early on we have Lian fighting a pair of “zombie” swordsmen (one of whom is Lee Hoi-Sang) and their wranglers. There is a quartet of swordsmen known as the Leng Brothers, who include Jackie Chan classmate Yuen Wah and talented choreographer Tang Tak-Cheung. Disappointingly, Norman Tsui’s “King of Left-Hand Sword” is absent for most of the film. Lily Li gets to show off some skin as the maneater Lady Feng. Future kung fu diva Kara Hui Ying-Hung shows up briefly near the end as a handmaiden at the Puppet Villa.

Frequent Chor Yuen collaborator Tong Gaai is on hand once more for the action, which he does a stellar job with. Most characters fight with your standard sword (jian) or saber/broadsword (dao), although there is room for variation. Ti Lung’s principal weapon is a spear, albeit one with a sword hidden inside. One of the zombies fights with a long-handled club. Even leaves and blades of grass turn into deadly weapons in the hands of one of the characters. And the McGuffin, the Deer-Cutting Sword, does show up at one point, doing major damage to everyone it is used against. The weapons choreography is on the same level as Avenging Eagle, another example of Tong Gaai’s talent. There are not any all-time great sequences, but the action maintains a high standard throughout.

Swordsman and Enchantress is a fun film that may require several viewings for one to assimilate the entire plot. In that way, it is similar to other wuxia films like Butterfly and Sword and Kung Fu Cult Master. Not surprisingly, both films were adapted to screen by Chor Yuen, as Killer Clans and Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, respectively. The movie moves too fast for the plot to really resonate, but the costumes, sets, pretty people and solid swordplay make it an easy film to watch and experience multiple times.

The Magic Blade (1976)

The Magic Blade (1976)
Chinese Title: 天涯明月刀
Translation: Tianya Bright Moon Knife

 

Starring: Ti Lung, Lo Lieh, Ching Li, Tang Ching, Tanny Tien Ni, Lily Li Li-Li, Fan Mei-Shang, Ku Feng, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung
Director: Chor Yuen
Action Director: Tong Gaai, Huang Pei-Chih

 

Shaw Brothers director Chor Yuen started his career behind the camera in 1957 with the obscure martial arts film Bloodshed in the Valley of Love. It starred 50s and 60s heartthrob Patrick Tse, who has racked up 179 acting credits to date. He worked mainly for the Kong Ngee Film Company, which was active during the late 50s and early 60s. After some 14 years in the business as a director, Chor Yuen signed on with the Shaw Brothers, where he became known for his wuxia films. His early Shaw efforts included The Killer and Duel for Gold, the former which was choreographed by a young Yuen Woo-Ping. It was his erotic, wuxia-tinged period piece Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972) that garnered him his biggest following. His most financially-successful film from that period, however, was the drama The House of 72 Tenants, which broke the record set by Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon, which in turn had broke the records of Bruce’s own Fist of Fury, which in turn broke the record set by his film The Big Boss.

In 1976, Chor Yuen took his career in a direction that would define his place in the genre among most fans today. He started directing complex wuxia films based on the works of Hong Kong author Gu Long[1]. Many of them starred Ti Lung: according to the Internet Movie Database, Ti Lung made some 14 movies with Chor Yuen from 1976 through 1983. His first effort was Killer Clans, based on the novel Comet, Butterfly and Sword. That movie was eventually remade in 1993 bearing the novel’s title, starring Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. The Magic Blade was his second adaptation of a Gu Long novel and to many, one of his best.

The film is relatively straightforward compared to other wuxia films of the late 70s and early 80s. Lo Lieh (5 Fingers of Death and Heroes of the Wild) plays a hedonistic swordsman named Yen Nan Fei. The year before, Yen had lost a duel with a powerful swordsman named Fu Hung Hsueh and the two agreed for a rematch a year later…this time, to the death. Fu (played by Ti Lung) shows up at the agreed-upon time and place, the Phoenix Village, and the two start to have it out. They are interrupted by a pair of hired assassins—Earth Evil and Wood Evil--who try to take them out. “Try” is the operating word here. Yen and Fu temporarily set aside their differences to find out why people are trying to kill them.

Another attempt is made on their lives at a local restaurant, this time by cannibalistic killer known as the Devil Grandma (Death Duel’s Teresa Ha Ping). In a desperate attempt to find a place where they can enjoy a meal in peace, Yen Nan Fei and Fu Hung-Hsueh head over to the Mingyue Restaurant, ran by Moon Heart (Tanny Tien Ni, The Association and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold). They come to conclusion that the assassins were hired by the enigmatic Mr. Yu, one of the most powerful figures in the Martial World. Moon Heart explains that Yu seeks supremacy in the world of jiang hu, and to that end he needs the legendary Peacock Dart weapon. Yen and Fu make a pact to find the Peacock Dart and stop Mr. Yu. Only then will they resume their own petty personal conflict.

Mr. Yu will not be deterred by a couple of a solitary swordsmen, no matter how skilled they may be. He calls upon his top five fighters—Chess Gu (Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, of Shaolin Mantis and Wing Chun); Poetry Tang (Lau Wai-Ling, of Virgins of the Seven Seas); Painter Wu (Fan Mei-Shang, of The Magnificent Butcher and Hitman in the Hand of Buddha); Sword Xiao (Ku Feng); and Yu Chin (Lily Li Li-Li). He also has lots of men on the inside, too. It is not going to be an easy quest for our heroes.

Unlike a lot of wuxia films based on novels, The Magic Blade is not a particularly difficult film to follow. There are a lot of villains in the movie, to be sure. Nonetheless, the main villain’s identity and general motives are never in question, even if we do not actually see him until the final scene. The film goes light on the twists and the main one will probably be obvious to most viewers, too. That said, The Magic Blade is a very busy film with fight scenes popping up every five minutes, each one introducing a new villain. Chor Yuen regular Tong Gaai keeps the fighting fast and fluid, while Chor injects some exploitation film tropes into the proceedings to keep things interesting. Thanks to the freakish Devil Grandma character, we get several references to cannibalism, including a scene of a bunch of people getting stirred in a pot. There is also some nudity and faux-lesbianism, although the angles and editing suggest that the actress bearing her breasts used a body double.

There is usually a point to be made in wuxia films, usually with regards to power and corruption. That seems to be the deal with The Magic Blade, in which one of the heroes eschews fame and power because that will inevitably make him a target for every single low-grade swordslinger looking to make a name for himself. As he points out, when you live that kind of life, you grow old on the dead bodies of others, or you die young, because there is always someone better.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the contrast between the two heroes. One of them—Fu Hung-Hsueh—lives a life of relative simplicity. He dresses in simple clothing, including a poncho, which brings to mind Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name from A Fistful of Dollars and its follow-ups. While his weapon of choice is completely badass (we’ll discuss that in a moment), its general appearance is pretty basic. On the other hand, Yen Nan-Fei is a complete hedonist. He loves the company of pretty women, the ability to drink overpriced wine, and all the pomp that comes with being a great swordsman. Look at his sword: the pommel, hilt and guard are extravagant in the extreme. Everything about Yen Nan-Fei screams excess.

Joining Fu and Yen for the ride is Miss Chiu Yu-Cheng, played by Shaw Brothers starlet Ching Li. One should not confuse Ching Li (Chinese name 井莉) with actress Li Ching (Chinese name 李菁)[2]. Ching Li, the lead actress of The Magic Blade, was a Taiwanese actress who joined the Shaw Brothers in 1967. Ching Li quickly worked her way up the ranks and became a leading actress by the early 1970s, starring in kung fu movies (Duel of Fists); wuxia films (she was a frequent collaborator of Chor Yuen); and dramas (Sex, Love and Hate and Sorrow of the Gentry). Ching Liu passed away in 2017 at the age of 72.

The action is brought to you by Shaw studio regular Tong Gaai and his frequent collaborator, Huang Pei-Chih. Tong Gaai had a penchant for wuxia and a preference for exotic weapons. The title refers to Ti Lung’s weapon, which is a saber (i.e. single edged sword) whose hilt runs perpendicular to the blade. Thus, a blade looks like a tonfa, or a cop’s nightstick. Ti Lung can also twirl it, which makes it good for slicing off limbs and slitting throats from any angle you can imagine. There are other weapons on display, including your more basic straight swords, spears, three-pronged forks, throwing daggers, and darts. But this being a Tong Gaai film, you also get explosives—known as “Thunder Bullets”, razor-sharp pieces of paper with poetry written on them, and a paintbrush that doubles as a chain whip.

The fights are generally very short, but are frequent enough that most viewers will not care all that much. The most memorable fight is probably with the aptly-named Chess Gu, in which he has his men design a life-sized chessboard with powdered chalk, and then has his minions take up strategic positions against our heroes. The penultimate fight has Fu Hung-Hsueh squaring off with several of Yu’s hired killers simultaneously. It is the longest and most complexly-choreographed fight of the film. The movie only disappoints at the climax, when Fu takes on the elusive Mr. Yu (Tang Ping, of Vengeance is a Golden Blade). The latter wields a metal staff shaped like a dragon. The choreography is a little clumsy and slower than the previous fights, probably because the weight of the weapon. It also ends quickly and in a rather anticlimactic fashion.

So much goes on in The Magic Blade that it will be impossible to absorb all of the movie on a single viewing. However, the acting is strong, the action is even stronger, and director Chor Yuen fills each scene with oodles of atmosphere—you often think that you’re watching a wuxia horror movie at times—that it’s a journey that you will not mind making again and again.

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[1] - He occasionally dipped into the works of the equally-popular Jin Yong as well, like with this two-part Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre movies and The Emperor and his Brother.

[2] - Li Ching was a Shanghai-born actress who got her start with the Shaw Brothers in the mid-1960s, appearing in a number of historical dramas before moving on to wuxia films like Rape of the Sword; Vengeance of the Snow Maid; and The New One-Armed Swordsman. By the mid-1970s, she was showing up in numerous sex comedies produced by the Shaws, including Sexy Girls of Denmark; That’s Adultery; and Evil Seducers. She retired from acting in 1979. Sadly, Li Ching passed away in complete solitude in 2018; it was only discovered that she had passed after her neighbors complained of a smell coming from her apartment.

The Super Inframan (1975)

The Super Infra Man (1975)
aka Inframan
Chinese Title: 中國超人
Translation: Chinese Ultraman

 

Starring: Danny Lee Sau-Yin, Wang Hsieh, Yuan Man-Tzu, Terry Lau Wai-Yue, Dana, Lin Wen-Wei, Chiang Yang, Bruce Le (as Huang Kin Lung), Lu Sheng, Fanny Leung Maan-Yee
Director: Hua Shan
Action Director: Tong Gaai, Yuen Cheung-Yan

 

Throughout most of the 1970s, the Shaw Brothers were the biggest studio in Hong Kong and commanded the highest budgets for their films. As a result, all of their movies--from wuxia to horror, from exploitation to soft porn--tended to look extremely polished compared to the competition. Costumes, sets, lighting, etc. looked great and contributed to their films’ followings to this day. Their budgets also allowed them to occasionally branch out into truly epic productions, including a handful of science fiction and fantasy movies. The most famous of these is The Super Infra Man, a uniquely Hong Kong take on the Japanese tokusatsu genre that had taken television by storm in the mid-1960s, and showed no signs of abating in the 1970s. Indeed, the 1970s saw dozens of tokusatsu shows get produced, including the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series, which remain perennials to the present.

While The Super Infra Man comes across as a Chinese version of Kamen Rider, it is not the first attempt for Hong Kong (or Taiwanese) producers to cash in on the popularity of tokusatsu. The previous year saw the release of Iron Superman, a Taiwanese production courtesy of Chang’s Film Company, which spliced in footage from the “Red Baron” series. Concurrent with The Super Inframan, Taiwan produced no fewer than three Kamen Rider films: Super Riders V3; The Five of Super Rider; and Super Riders Against the Devils. In 1976, a Taiwanese company made Mars Men, which borrowed special effects footage from the Japanese-Thai co-production Jumborg Ace and Giant. Nonetheless, The Super Infra Man stands out as the first Chinese film to present an original tokusatsu character, complete with original special effects footage.

The movie begins with a school bus driving near Mount Devil--I can’t imagine anything bad coming out of a place with a name like that! The bus trip is interrupted by a large dragon landing on the highway in front of them, which followed by an earthquake. We learn that the earthquake let of an “electric wave” that set the city (Hong Kong?) on fire and (presumably) killed hundreds, if not thousands. Professor Liu Yingde (Wang Hsieh, The Lady Hermit and The Devil’s Mirror) is brought in to investigate these freak phenomena with the help of his organization, analogous to Ultraman’s Science Patrol.

They receive a message from the aforementioned dragon, who has transformed into Princess Dragon Mom[1] (Terry Liu, of Dragon Lives Again and Killer Snakes), a hot, whip-wielding blonde woman with a cool dragon helmet and a throbbing desire to conquer humanity. She gives the human race an ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed by her monster army. Professor Liu responds by subjecting his most-trusted agent, Rayma (Daniel Lee, of The Killer and Untold Story), to an experimental procedure that will transform him into the superhero Infra Man. Once that happens, the film becomes a succession of effects-heavy action sequences as Infra Man fights one monster opponent after another until he and the rest of the Science Patrol raid Princess Dragon Mom’s skull-shaped castle at the top of Mount Devil for a final battle.

The film plays like a succession of four or five episodes of an unreleased Tokusatsu series. The first forty minutes play like a two-episode pilot, complete with an origin story and a mini-climax where Infra Man must fight his first enemy: Plant Monster. “Episode Three” introduces some human drama: a member of the Science Patrol, Zhu Ming (Lin Wen-Wei, of The Flying Guillotine), is captured and brought back to Dragon Mom’s palace, where he is brainwashed by her first lieutenant, Eye Demon (Dana, of Storming Attacks and Bruce Le in New Guinea). He then sneaks back into Science Patrol headquarters to steal the blueprints to Infra Man. This episode climaxes with a fight between Infra Man and a web-spitting bug monster. The next episode has Zhu Ming and another monster, Mutant Drill, sneak into the lab with the intent of blowing it up. It ends on a cliffhanger of a major character getting kidnapped. The fourth and last episode is the all-out assault on Dragon Mom’s palace, with Infra Man fighting an army of skeleton henchman and several other monsters, before facing off with Princess Dragon Mom herself.

One of the interesting things about Japanese science-fiction and fantasy is that their writers have long since mastered the art of making pseudo-scientific babble sound plausible and even realistic. And even when it doesn’t, the writers generally tend to be good about establishing a consistent internal logic, like ins most of their sci-fi anime. Super Infra Man completely fails in that regard, although always with hilarious results. Writer Ni Kuang was great when it came to screenplays for wuxia and kung fu movies—the man penned 300 novels and 400 film scripts over the course of his career—but science fiction seemed to be a bit beyond his grasp[2].

The script suggests that Ni Kuang received the scripts for several episodes of “Ultraman” that had been translated from Japanese to Chinese via Google Translator to use as inspiration. Being unlearned in pseudo-science, he wrote the story as a modern day wuxia film, but with monsters standing in for demons and fox spirits with zany wuxia superpowers. He then garnished the writing with talk of secret weapons and electrical waves and bio-hormones. Later on, the subtitles—which have always been questionable when dealing with Chinese cinema—were born of the script being Google translated from Chinese into a Ural-Alatic language and then into an Indo-European language closer to Ancient Greek before finally being translated into English.

Thankfully, director Hua Shan has no illusions that he’s making 2001: A Space Odyssey and embues the film with a breakneck pace and lots of action and effects. Hua Shan would direct a few more kung fu films for the Shaw Brothers, like The Flying Guillotine Part 2 and To Kill a Jaguar. He also directed Crystal Fist and Sun Dragon, a pair of kung fu movies starring Indonesian actor Billy Chong that have strong fan followings today. Sun Dragon is particularly interesting, as it was filmed in Arizona and is supposed to take place in the Wild West, but has scenes set in front of modern mining companies and all. The man apparently was completely blind to budgetary overreach and in the case of The Super Infra Man, it only serves to make the film a lot more fun to watch.

The action choreography was mounted by Shaw Brothers regular Tong Gaai, with Yuen Cheung-Yan being credited with the stunt direction. I’m guessing that Yuen was responsible for orchestrating the frequent wire stunts: super jumps, flying jump kicks, monsters getting kicked dozens of yards through the air, etc. The fighting itself is a lot of fun, even if it works on the level of a typical early 70s basher movie. The fact that all the stuntmen are wearing garish outfits or silly rubber monster costumes adds a lot more color to the fights. Tong Gaai’s extensive experience in the genre, including the seminal The Chinese Boxer and the earliest films in Chang Cheh’s “Shaolin Cycle,” means that he can do hand-to-hand combat with a lot more authority than his Japanese counterparts could do at the time. In fact, The Super Infra Man has some of the best action Tong Gaai’s lengthy career.

Some of the monster designs reflect Tong’s preference for wuxia movies and exotic weapons. For example, during the end fight, Infra Man fights a pair of robots whose arms are actually just spiked maces at the end of giant slinkies. Moreover, said robots’ heads can also extend in a similar manner. While a Japanese tokusatsu series might have said accessories put the hero in a chokehold that only a special weapon can break, Tong choreographs a complex fight where the hero must fight off multiple opponents while simultaneously ducking and weaving through the robots extendable weapons. We also have dozens of henchmen wielding exploding spears; a sexy Eye Demon who fights with a dagger, but can also fire lasers out of the eyes growing out of the palms of her hands; and much more!

Experienced viewers will note that Rayma’s best friend, Xiao Long, is played by Burmese actor Huang Kin Lung. Huang Kin Lung had come to Hong Kong from Burma to find his fortune in the movie business. He had found work at the Shaw Brothers, including playing the Chinese folk hero Ghost Foot Seven in the Wong Fei Hung movie Rivals of Kung Fu. In this movie, his character, Xiao Long, shares the name with Bruce Lee (whose Cantonese screen name was Lei Siu-Lung). “Xiao Lung” is the Mandarin equivalent to the Cantonese “Siu Lung”, meaning “Little Dragon.” Huang Kin Lung does indeed imitate Bruce Lee in his limited fights. The following year, Huang Kin Lung would adopt the moniker Bruce Le[3] and become one of the most important names in the Brucesploitation business[4].

There is no way not to have fun while watching The Super Infra Man. The frequent fight scenes, low-grade monster costumes and optical effects, inane dialog, and childlike sense of whimsy pervade very scene. It feels like a Japanese tokusatsu character filtered through the mind of a 10-year-old with an overactive imagination, realized by a bunch of people better suited for kung fu movies. And the film is all the better for it!

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[1] - That’s her name in the English dub. In the subtitled version, she’s called Princess Elzibub. Subtle.

[2] - He apparently did write some science fiction in the 1960s, though.

[3] - Known in the West as Bruce Le, his screen name in Chinese was 呂小龍. In Mandarin, it reads as Lu Xiaolong. In Cantonese, it reads as Lui Siu-Lung.

[4] - Despite Bruce Le already making inroads on the Brucesploitation train while still working for the Shaw Brothers, the role of Bruce Lee in the Shaw Brothers film Bruce Lee, His Last Days and Nights (1976) went instead to co-star Danny Lee.

The Heroic Ones (1970)

The Heroic Ones (1970)
aka: The 13 Masters; Shaolin Masters; 13 Sons of Yellow Dragon
Chinese Title: 十三太保
Translation: Thirteen Court Advisors

Starring: David Chiang, Ti Lung, Ku Feng, Chen Sing, Chin Han, Pao Chia-Wen, Lo Wai, James Nam Gung-Fan, Lau Gong, Sung Tuan, Huang Pei-Chih, Wang Kuang-Yu, Chan Chuen, Lau Kar-Wing, Wong Chung, Lily Li, Bolo Yeung
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Directors: Tong Gaai, Lau Kar-Leung, Lau Kar-Wing

As the film opens, a voiceover informs that the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD) has weakened and is enduring a lot of internal strife. So much so, that a bandit army has formed and taken over the capital, Chang’an. The emperor has enlisted the help of the trusted warlord, Li Keyong (who’ll be played by Shaw Brothers regular Ku Feng in the film), and his 13 sons to take the capital back and defeat the rebels.

The story proper begins circa 883 AD, with Li Keyong and his sons partying and drinking themselves silly in the presence of other officials, including the weasly Zhu Wen (perennial movie villain Chen Sing, in a role usually reserved for Wei Ping-Ao). A rebel general (Bolo Yeung) shows up at the city gates, challenging the generals to personal combat. A drunken Li Cunxiao (David Chiang), Keyong’s 13th general and former shepherd, takes up the challenge and defeats the brute. This incurs both the jealousy and the ire of Zhu Wen, who retreats to his palace in Bianliang.

The 13 Generals then sneak into Chang’an with the mission to assassinate the rebel king and disperse the enemy army. Things are going well until the 4th and 12th generals get green with envy when they see Li Cunxiao about to complete the mission. They start attacking the guards early and the confusion both prevents them Cunxiao from killing his target and gets everybody trapped in the city. Only the timely intervention of a young woman (played by Lily Li) playing the role of Rahab saves the men from capture and execution.

All of this accounts for the first half of a two-hour film, one of the longer kung fu epics of the 1970s. The second half is practically a different film, in which the ambitious Zhu Wen—who in real life would end up toppling the Tang Dynasty himself and starting the infamous “Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms” period—tries to get Li Keyong and his sons out of the way, as their loyalty to the Tang emperor threatens his plans to take over China. Connecting the two halves is the subplot involving the jealous 4th and 12th Brothers, which Zhu exploits and ultimately leads to the downfall of the Li family.

When I first watched the film, I dismissed it (at least from an action standpoint) as being nothing that one couldn’t find good examples of in your average Italian peplum film made the previous decade. That may still be true, although to be honest, I need to go back and watch the larger-scacled, battle-oriented films like The Giant of Marathon and check. Watching it a second time, especially after watching several wuxia films from the previous decade, made me appreciate it a lot more. And much like John Woo’s two-part epic Red Cliff, the battles focus on the exploits of nigh super-powered generals taking on legions of soldiers, as opposed to dozens of foot soldiers caught up in the chaos.

In King Hu’s landmark films, action director Hang Ying-Chieh was definitely going for “Japanese samurai choreography filtered through the lens of a Peking Opera master.” In the arthouse film A City Called Dragon (1969), it took three choreographers to get the Japanese chambara style of swordplay just right. In this film, Chang Cheh’s action direction team—Tong Gaai and Lau Kar-Leung—keep things fast and simple. An exchange of a hero blocking two or three attackers, and then swinging his weapon and killing one (although sometimes up to five!) opponent. And since the action involves whole armies, it guarantees that there’s little time for strategy and circling: the action scenes are bloody free-for-alls.

As one would expect from a movie revolving around clashing militaries, fights are weapons based, with sabers and spears getting most of the attention, especially the latter, which are David Chiang’s and Ti Lung’s weapons of choice. During the huge and exciting flight from Bianliang castle, Zhu Wen sends a couple of squads of special soldiers—one group is armed with horse-chopping blades, while another uses rope-darts—to kill our heroes. Said escape from Bianliang is the pièce de résistance of the film, as it goes on for almost 20 minutes and has Ti Lung (playing the 11th general, Li Jingsi) killing dozens and dozens of soldiers as he puts his life on the line to get his father out of a burning palace and to safety. In fact, that scene is so exciting that the clímax, where the remaining generals have to root the treachery out of their own family, ends up suffering. At this point, neither Tong Gaai nor Lau Kar-Leung had evolved enough as fight choreographers to give the nine-on-two weapons duel the energy and complexity it needed to stand alongside the sheer scale of the previous set piece. Thus, what should be the emotional and physical peak of the movie is ultimately an anticlímax.

A final observation: I noticed that the military garb worn by the characters is identical to what I’ve seen in films set in both the Song and Ming Dynasties, which came later on. I wonder if Chinese army dress hadn’t changed over the course of several hundred years, or if the costume designers weren’t aware of that, or if simply there was no budget to create authentic attire for Tang Dynasty soldiers, and thus cobbled together whatever was left over from the last Shaw Production set in the Ming Dynasty.

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