That Fiery Girl
Director: Yan Jun
Year: 1968
Rating: 6.0
This title may sound
more like a spin off from the 1960’s TV sitcom “That Girl” with the ever
so bubbly Marlo Thomas (“That Fiery Girl, when she fights she is all a whirl
– oh, our Fiery Girl”) – than a martial arts film of deadly mayhem and blood.
Instead though this stars the very non-bubbly Cheng Pei-pei who would as
soon cut someone in half than throw them a perky smile. Cheng Pei-pei was
rarely one for pleasant amenities in her films – almost always very serious
and with a deadly agenda on her mind. In some ways she is like Michelle Yeoh,
always looking much more comfortable with a sword in her arms than a man
and her romances rarely had much sizzle to them – but no one was better at
projecting sheer determination in getting what was hers – whether it was
justice or revenge.
Looking back at Cheng Pei-pei’s career one can’t help but note that after
“Come Drink With Me” turned her into an unexpected martial arts star, none
of her many similar type of films that followed ever even came close
to being as good. She had been trained as a dancer and her role in “Hong Kong
Nocturne” seemed to be the first step that would lead her into a career of
musicals and romances, but King Hu changed all that by picking her to be
his heroine in the seminal work that moved martial arts film onto a higher
plain. Sadly though, Hu soon left the services of the Shaw Brothers for Taiwan
and he never was able to work with Cheng Pei-pei again though he had very
much wanted her for “Dragon Inn”. Instead she often had to work with competent
but far from inspired directors such as Lo Wei (on five films), Chui Chang-wang
and Yen Chun. The one film in which she starred for Chang Cheh was “Golden
Swallow” in which he took her character from “Come Drink with Me” and made
her secondary to that of Jimmy Wang-yu (always a major sore point with me!).
“That Fiery Girl” from director Yen Chun is fairly laborious for most of its
running time until the final twenty minutes in which he finally turns Cheng
Pei-pei loose and allows her to do what she does best – massive bloodletting.
Her nickname is “Red Chili” and she is the daughter of a bandit king (Tang
Ti) who has a small army of men working for him and is well protected from
the law by a series of deadly booby traps that surrounds his land. He is after
a treasure map and sends his two top men (Fan Mei Sheng and Cheng Lei) along
with Cheng Pei-pei to find it among the Mei clan. They have no success but
still take great pleasure in cutting off a man’s arm and setting his house
on fire and then laughing uproariously at how amusing it all is. Cheng Pei-pei
is a little more sensitive and is mildly miffed that they acted so cruelly
and laughed so loudly. A member of the Mei clan (Korean actor Chen Liang)
pretends to sell out his clan by going to the bandit hideout and giving them
the treasure map, which has come into his possession. This pleases the bad
guys to no end because now they say gleefully that they won’t have to work
– but cutting of arms and killing people seemed more like fun than work.
Pei-pei takes a fancy to the newcomer and
gets all giggly with her “sister” Lily Li (in a non-action role), but the
number three chief has his own eyes set on marrying into the family business
and attempts to kill Chen on a number of occasions. Seeing this romance beginning
to bloom, the sister (Chao Hsin Yen) of Number 3 tries to get Chen married
to Lily instead – but this forces Pei-pei’s old wet nurse (Ouyang Shafei)
to tell her some painful truths about her past. Up to this point really
very little of interest has happened – lots of meandering skullduggery but
very little action – but that is about to change as the truth sets Cheng
Pei-pei down a path of mass death and destruction – and all of a sudden this
film gets very entertaining. The action choreography tends to be a bit soggy
and slow, but watching Pei-pei cut through men like warm orange marmalade
is one of life's little pleasures.
Trailer
