The Lost Swordship
 
 
Director:  Li Chia
Year: 1977
Rating: 5.0

This is another Taiwanese wuxia based on a story by Gu Long and starring Tien Peng aka Roc Tien.  The action scenes are fine but in general the film is an editor's nightmare. What a mess of a plot and a narrative structure.  Continuity is just weird. One moment a man who has just been stabbed in an open field sits down to die against a tree. One moment two of our protagonists are in a prison in the heavily guarded compound of the villain and literally the next moment they are out in the fields skipping about. One time you enter the gates to the villain's lair and you are right there; the next time you have to walk miles to get there.  Didn't any one notice this or was it just acceptable? This happens constantly throughout the film. It has other issues as well.




The main one being that our hero Nan-jen (Tien Peng) keeps getting beat or trapped or knocked out or just decides to go into hiding. For five years! Heroes are not supposed to do that. Especially if their wife has been kidnapped. Any way it starts off great when during the opening credits assassins are killing people and throwing a black shroud over them. One while in bed with a woman and a needle, another by having a giant bell fall on someone's head, another by hanging someone from a racing horse. Nan-jen shows up to find the temple grounds littered with dead bodies. This is the dastardly work of  the Golden Masked Bishop who runs the Tien Cheng Chiao group. Hard to understand what their end goal is but they go around killing a lot of people. Nan-jen swears to bring them down. Eventually. No hurry mind you.







Not even after they kidnap his wife Jo-pi (Wang Ping) and his best friend Pei Hsiu (Pai Ying) joins them because he is in love with Jo-pi who they have captive. Nan-jen gets a dose of the Buddha Palm or some variation and decides to go into hiding as a teacher for two years. Then he goes looking for the Fragrant Sword - apparently a legendary sword that is hidden by his family and only he knows the location. He finds it and oddly finds two old coots fighting one another for practice - for 20 years they tell him - he decides to stay another three years to learn from them. And learns how to boomerang his sword. Now he figures it is time to save his wife. After five years. He is joined on his quest by Lady Hsiao who nicknames herself the Fierce Beauty (Tang Pao-yun) and who clearly wants to bed him.  Waiting for them is his old friend and now enemy Pei-hsiu, the cruel Lady Wan-miao (Hu Chin) and of course the Golden Bishop whose secret identity is behind this enormous mask (if you haven't figured out who it is go back to jail, don't pass Go).  A good last ten minutes in which he and the Fierce Beauty avoid  a ton of booby-traps and men. But what a mess.