Whiplash

  
Director: Ting Shan-hsi
Year: 1974
Rating: 6.0
This was to be Cheng Pei-pei’s last film for eight years. After her many films at Shaw Brothers including classics like Come Drink With Me, Hong Kong Nocturne and Golden Swallow she left the studio and made two films with the new guy on the block – Golden Harvest. First was “None But the Brave” directed by another former Shaw Brother’s alumni, Lo Wei, and then this film. In the meantime, she had gotten married in America and was having children. After this film she decided to retire and focus on motherhood. She returned in 1982 to work in of all things Lunatic Frog Woman aka Lady Piranha.



The film begins with a narrative about an Empress in ancient times hiding her treasures up in the mountains in order to keep them safe. And lost as it turns out. Pei-pei’s (or as her friendly nickname goes Tiger-Lasher) father discovered the treasures by accident and is now leading what he thinks are honorable men from the government to retrieve it. Pei-pei is left to mind the family store/restaurant that is out in the middle of nowhere. Her skills with her whip should keep her safe. Her kung-fu isn’t bad either and she will be needing it. Seven robbers appear on her doorstep looking for trouble – they appear like they just came off the set of a Spaghetti Western as the villains – one a dwarf (Ai Tsu-wang), one a strong man and all of them damn ornery looking. One of them has a knife that she recognizes as her father’s. The ruffian says he found it on the road. A nice little scuffle follows in which she brandishes her whip, a miniature cross-bow and some fast moves. Finally a cease-fire is called.



How better to celebrate a truce than for Pei-pei to perform a dance around the camp fire as she beats her drum, singing “Let’s drink Tiger-Bone wine”. Pei-pei had of course been trained as a dancer and when the Shaw’s signed her they envisioned her appearing in dramas and Huangmei aka Chinese Opera films along with Ivy Ling Po. King Hu put an end to that when he chose her to be Golden Swallow in Come Drink with Me. That set her on a path as the top female martial art actress at Shaw – though she still did get to appear in a few musicals – Hong Kong Nocturne and Blue Skies. This strange interlude in which the men around the fire also begin singing in Opera style is quite a treat. She wears such a huge smile on her face while dancing that I couldn’t help but think that dance must have been her real love. After they all pass out she sings “Here in front of me lie seven fat cows. Who killed my dad? I will take revenge”. It is such a cool scene that I kind of wish the whole movie had been like this, a kung-fu Huangmei. First of its kind.



When the men awaken they find themselves tied to one another. She forces them to walk to where they had found her father’s knife far up into the mountains and in a series of caves. On the way she saves the strong man from a giant snake and sucks the poison out.  Once they reach the caves she is persuaded to untie them and they immediately attack her and try to rape her. It also soon appears that there are other individuals already at the cave who are willing to kill to keep people from discovering what is in the cave. And they have guns. And no one trusts any one and they all want the treasure. All of this leads to a showdown that gets very down, dirty, brutal and deadly by the end.



Clearly, Golden Harvest was not willing to put much of a budget into this. It is all shot outdoors with no sets built – unless the caves were sets. The other actors with her are not very well known at all and the director Ting Shang-his had not done much at that point that anyone would know. Later he was to direct 800 Heroes, A Queen’s Ransom, Magnificent 72 and The Beheaded 1000. And the action choreographer is Lai Ting-chung who only choreographed two other films. So I doubt GH was expecting much – perhaps they knew Cheng Pei-pei was retiring and so were not willing to give the film much support. But nevertheless, this is a good vehicle for Cheng Pei-pei to go out on. Rough and basic and gives her opportunities to fight, to weep, to emote and to dance.