The Warlord
Director: Li Han-hsiang
Year: 1972
Rating: 6.5
The Warlord (1972)
is known primarily today as the film debut of Michael Hui. Hui had been a
very popular TV comedian with a show that I am told had the irreverent tones
of the American show Laugh In. Over the course of the 1970’s Hui was to almost
reinvent Hong Kong comedy with a series of brilliant films and to a large
degree, he was also instrumental in bringing back Cantonese as a cinematic
language. The first four films that he appeared in though were not of his
own making. They were instead the works of director Li Han Hsiang.
During the 1950s and 1960s Li Han Hsiang had directed many large spectacular
historical costume dramas for the Shaw Brothers such as The Kingdom and the
Beauty and Empress Wu Tse Tien. In 1963 though he left the services of the
Shaw Brothers to form his own film production company called the Grand Motion
Picture Company (Guolian). He made a number of successful films but his productions
tended to be lavish and by the end of the decade the company had gone bankrupt.
He returned to Shaw, but his films during the 1970s were very different from
his previous ones. He now seemed to focus on films that were crass and commercial
and dealt with prostitution, sex, bordellos and other unsavory but entertaining
subjects. Some of these films are Legends of Lust, Tales of Larceny, Illicit
Desire, Crazy Sex, That’s Adultery and many more. To some extent he was a
precursor to the Cat III films of the 1980s and 1990s.
Though The Warlord has moments of this (though
I fear my Malaysian vcd edited them out), it is primarily a comedic and yet
semi-serious look at the rise and fall of a warlord in the first decades of
1900s. Hui takes on this character with great zest, playing him very broadly
and with just the right elements of charm and cruelty. Certainly the character
has none of the subtlety or shadings of Hui’s later characters, but there
is a definite self-mocking tone to it all and some fairly amusing moments
within.
In the animated opening credits the film tells us that Pang (Hui) was a fierce
brigand from the north of China, but that the Russians paid him to fight
and defeat the Japanese. After doing this he became the warlord of Shantung
and ruled with only a nodding obligation towards the law. He is judge and
jury and generally someone ends up at the wrong end of a firing squad. In
one case Madame Kao (Hu Chin - The Fate of Lee Khan) comes before him and
accuses her brother-in-law of raping her. Pang suspects something is amiss
and in a very un-PC move orders two of his men to rape her in the court.
When she resists just fine, Pang knows she has made up the story.
The film follows further actions of his – such as raiding the tomb of the
Empress Dowager or having to surrender Peking in a game of chance – but eventually
the period of the warlords begins to die out and the days of Pang and his
many wives looks numbered. This film is
certainly no classic – and likely would be forgotten if not for Hui – but
it has excellent production values – a huge cast of extras – and an enjoyable
performance from Hui. Hui was to make three more films for Li and the Shaw
Brothers (The Happiest Moment, Scandal and Sinful Confession) before he was
to break away and join Golden Harvest and begin making his own splendid films.
