The Golden Knight
Director: Griffin Yuen-feng
Year: 1970
Rating: 6.0
Lily Ho looks very
good dressed in vengeance. She wears it well. Of course, Lily Ho looked good
in anything. The classic Shaw beauty could pull off miniskirts to period wear
with élan. Admittedly, she looks more at home with a gun or a tube
of lipstick than a sword in her hand, but she does revenge well. Here she
is looking for payback for the killing of her father. This film gets no high
fives from martial arts fans for a good reason - there isn't much and what
there is won't get you excited. It is adequate but this film rests on the
slim shoulders of Lily and she is no legitimate martial artist and the choreographer
has to take that into consideration. There is that one lovely visual moment
when the villain has been outed in a room full of Masters and jumps up through
the tiles on the roof and all the Masters follow him. You really felt they
were Super Heroes, which is of course what they were to the Chinese, reading
the books and watching the movies. Those were their Super Heroes.
I very much enjoyed this but it is very
plot heavy with twists and turns, and more Clans and secret weapons than I
was able to keep up with. But it didn't really matter as much as I was worried
about at the beginning because at its heart it is a murder mystery that has
to be unraveled by Lily with many suspects. The denouement at the end - pre
crashing through the roof - is worthy of Agatha Christie though Christie neglected
to ever have her suspects wear fake rubber faces. Which is a pity. Five schools
or clans all gather at a solemn meeting sitting in their own cheering section.
A masked woman has been stealing their kung fu instruction manuals and killing
many of them with the Poison Palm. As that is the technique of the clan that
Yu Feixia (Lily Ho) belongs to, they want her brought to justice. She has
other ideas.
Her father was murdered and she is sure
it is someone from one of the clans and is searching for him. She protests
that she isn't the one killing people. In fact, she has been busy robbing
from the rich and giving to the poor. Which gets you good merits. One
of the Golden Knights (Kao Yuen) believes in her innocence and brings her
back to the Council to stand trial. She is put into prison and told that if
they can't find the female killer she will be executed in 30 days. They don't
- mainly because the two Golden Knights they send out - Ku Feng and Fan Mei-sheng
- have their faces taken and placed on imposters who do no looking at all.
As her execution approaches her Master (Wang Hsieh) helps her escape and
tells her to find the killer.
She goes undercover as a man and no one
has any idea who she is! Not the most observant of people because even with
her scholarly outfit on, her figure is still there to see. When she finally
reveals who she is, everyone is shocked and I am thinking no one wondered
why this young thin man had a bosum? It is good mystery - I had my money
on her Master because Wang Hsieh usually is the villain. When she finds the
real female killer, it doesn't go where you think it will and their friendship
is intriguing and almost romantic. Of course, the other woman thinks Lily
is a man. Appearing also is Ching Miao, Chuan Yuan, Sammo Hung, Lam
Ching-ying and Shu Pei-pei. Sammo and Lam have tiny parts.
This is directed by Griffin Yueh Feng who
directed his first film in 1933! And here he was still directing Shaw Brothers
films - Lady General Hua Mulan, Madam White Snake, The Last Woman of
Shang, Dragon Creek - more of a dramatic director than an action one which
might explain the paucity of it here (though there are a few action encounters
and the finale).
