99 Cycling Swords
What a treat this Polly Shang Kwan film turned
out to be. It has the quota of action expected from a kung-fu film, but on
top of that it has a terrifically charming performance from Polly. That was
not unexpected, as Polly often is much more playful in her interpretations
of her characters than most of the other kung-fu females were. She was considered
an actress as much as an action star and in fact one time won the Taiwanese
Best Actress award.
In this slightly convoluted story Polly is one among many trying to track
down a mysterious man in white who is attempting to bring back the Ching
dynasty to power. As this mystery man always wears a hat low over his face
no one knows what he looks like and everyone becomes a suspect during the
film. As the suspects slowly get killed off the list narrows down to only
a few – sort of like an Agatha Christie novel but with a lot more mayhem!
Polly show up one day – coincidentally all dressed in white – and has to
fight off a roomful of attackers before she convinces them that she is not
the man they are looking for. I say the “man” because Polly is disguised
as a male for nearly all of the film. The fact that she is small, cute and
has breasts doesn’t seem to clue anyone in.
This scenario produces some sexual confusion as she tells another man that
she loves him – and though he has appeared to be attracted to Polly has to
tell him that he doesn’t swing that way. Polly pops up though as her own
twin sister to capture the man’s heart. At the same time, for much of the
film another female is quite infatuated with the disguised Polly.
The film has a large number of fight scenes and many of them have imaginative
touches and lots of highflying acrobatics and use of some wire work to jump
into trees and such. Lo Lieh shows up as well from time to time – and it
turns out that he is promised in an arranged marriage to Polly – and is looking
for her everywhere. Little does he know!
My rating for this film: 7.0