A wagon with a man, wife and two infant twins
are traveling a lonely road when they are set upon by The Weird Four of Lao
Shan. Now if they named themselves that or it was applied by others isn’t
very clear – but they are in fact a bit odd though soon three of them are
dead. They are after the Creed. So are the two sisters of the Chang Cheun
Clan who soon show up to kill the Weirds as well as the husband and wife.
Considering that the woman is their sister, this is not a very sisterly act,
but they think that the husband and wife have taken the Creed with them. As
it turns out they haven’t. So the elder sister (Essie Lin Chia) comes up
with an amazingly devious plan that will take 18-years to play out. They take
one child with them and leave the other – knowing that someday they will
have to fight to the death not knowing they are siblings and thus the sisters
will get their revenge! Wow. That’s a plan of all plans. Wouldn’t it have
been easier just throwing them into a sack and putting it in a river? How
do they know that someday they will meet and duel to the death – because this
is wuxia, silly!
Soon along comes Hero Lian (Ku Feng) who
is the uncle of the dead man and he takes the child with him and goes looking
for Chang Zhai who he thinks is responsible for the death of his brother.
This takes him to Happy Valley, which is not a rest home but is in fact
a home for the most vicious villains in China! Being the nice guys they are
they beat up Hero Lian and damage him so badly that they take away his kung
fu powers and plan on killing him until the town doctor persuades them to
leave the fellow with him so that he can use him as a guinea pig for his healing
skills. The child is taken in by the group and taught all of their various
martial art powers so that someday the child can help them. So as the years
pass they teach Siao Lu-er “Heaven Full of Stars”, “Bloody Sand Palm”, “Piercing
Sword” and of course what education would be complete without “Fairy Sprinkles
the Flowers”. Unfortunately for themselves they neglected to teach the child
badness – and so Siao Lu-er grows up a happy-go-lucky kid who only wants
to find the killer of mom and dad and seek revenge on him – every child’s
dream.
Eighteen years pass and meanwhile Hero Lian
is still being healed by the doctor (Yan Jun – director of this film as
well) – he must have a hell of a long-term insurance plan! Finally, Siao
Lu-er starts her journey to look for Chang Zhai (Chang Pei-shan) and soon
spots a young woman being surrounded by some swine – she kills them all but
is then immediately surrounded again by the Invincible Heavenly Swordsman
who are looking for a treasure map. The woman is asked by them how much she
wants for it – her response “Your lives” does not sit well with them and
they attack her and get the better of her only to have Siao Lu-er intervene
and kill them. The woman (Pan Ying-tzu), gets all dreamy-eyed and develops
a crush on Lu-er and is a bit put out when her brother, Hua Yu Chun (Kao
Yuen) shows up and tries to kill Lu-er. Why? Because he thinks Lu-er is responsible
for the stolen Creed. Clearly one of these two must be the missing sibling
– but which one?
Story twist is piled upon story twist until the final duel between Lu-er and Yu Chun – when it is finally revealed that Lu-er is a woman disguised as a man – the sister is properly disappointed – but then oddly so is Yu Chun who has also grown an affection for Lu-er but still feels the need to kill him – it’s one of those wuxia things. It’s all very messy but rather entertaining – like trying to follow a chess game after a night of heavy drinking. None of the main actors are martial artists and so that aspect of the film is rather tame with loads of jumps, clanging swords and catching darts in your mouth – all that training comes in handy. Fun and quite silly, but it’s nice seeing Lily Ho dominating a martial arts film.
