Invincible Swordswoman
Director: Chen Ming-hua
Year: 1977
Rating: 7.5
Up on YouTube with a decent picture and
readable English subs
This Taiwanese wuxia is awash in betrayals
heaped on betrayals, revenge, bitter romance, conspiracies, heroism, twists
and some great wuxia swordplay and weaponry. This far exceeded my expectations
with wall to wall melodrama and action. It has a little bit of everything
from a wonderful tournament where the two contestants stand upon sharp metal
spikes and a slip or fall means death to the old trick of taking off your
face to reveal your true identity. And a solid cast with Yuen Hua, Lo Lieh
(in a fight cameo), Chung Wah and the Wolf Devil Woman herself, Pearl Chang-ling.
Pearl is a force of nature and has or had
a small band of fans dedicated to her work as an actress and her four directed
films. I just saw that these four films were put out by Gold Ninja Video
as a package. So she isn't forgotten. She was a huge star in Taiwan where
a TV show with her titled Bodyguard that ran for 256 episodes in 1974 and
75. After that she acted in a number of martial arts films and finally directed
those films which much of her reputation in the West is based on. I sadly
admit I have seen none of them but after this film I plan to see every film
of hers that I can get my hands on because she is fabulous in this - a reluctant
whirling dervish of death.
It takes place in the Ming Dynasty and the
Commanding General Ma Tang (Chiang Ming) forms a group of killers that he
calls the 12 Devils to carry out his assassinations to gain power. They all
wear these masks with faces painted on them that look a bit silly. In a contest
to chose the best twelve, Yuen Hua shows up uninvited and proves that he
has defeated the three best swordsmen in Northern China. At the same time.
He is made the head of the Devils and proves to be a cruel man as we see
in a number of tortures. He suggests to Ma Tang that the only person he has
to fear is Pai Yu-song, the daughter of a man Ma killed years before. She
is a great swordswoman Yuen says - we need to find her and kill her. But
Pai has disappeared from society and gone into hiding . . . as a man. Eventually
she has to come out in a bordello where she dispatches three killers in very
cool ways. And then others show up - Chung Wah with a bitter history with
her family but in love with her, Fan Ling in scarlet in love with Chung and
so naturally hates Pai (and kicks Blackie Ko on to a roof) and a beggar (Cliff
Lok) with a bad leg who proves to be much more than that in a very swift
killing scene.
The film looks great from the opening credits
when pages are turned to show them to the sets and the amazing tournament
on steel spikes in which every time someone fell I went ouch. That must have
hurt. There are a lot of those nifty wuxia action bits with flying darts,
sneaky deadly weapons and high flying moments. It is directed by Chen Ming-hua
who only directed six films - all starring Pearl. She is another Taiwanese
actress who never seems to have tried too hard to break into Hong Kong film.
