The Girl Named Iron
Phoenix
Director: Lin Fu-ti
Year: 1973
Rating:
4.5
Dubbed
The main star is Chia Ling who goes undercover
as a cop in this Taiwanese martial arts film that is set in modern times.
This is the third film in her career that was to span from 1972 to 1984. In
her films released in the West, she was called Judy Lee. Her debut film had
been the year before this - the classic The Avenger aka Queen Boxer - in
which she comes into town looking for the murderer of her brother and kills
pretty much everyone. I wish that would come out in a good digital format.
This film is sadly not nearly as good - I don't think she kills anyone -
a lot of beatdowns but she goes easy on the bad guys. The difference between
seeking revenge and just being a cop on duty. There is also a large dose of
bad comedy thrown in to cause me pain.
A ship owner (Chen Yu-hsin) is kind enough
to take out life insurance policies on his workers - and then kills them in
"accidents" - and collects the insurance. After some ten of these the police
send Chia Ling in to investigate. Being a mere woman, who would suspect her.
Eventually, she teams up with two other guys - both lacking much smarts (Tung
Li - who I have only seen as a bad guy - and A Sai who is the idiot comedy
in this). There are a lot of fights in this - a lot of clobbering - but it
is poorly executed, kicks and punches that are clearly missing by the length
of a football field - and sad sack opponents. Chia Ling does some nice acrobatics,
but she has no opportunity to show her stuff for most of the film. At the
end the owner turns to the Japanese (Tien Feng) and his Four Tigers - and
the fighting goes up a notch. A pretty shoddy low budget affair for the most
part. Chia Ling was to star in over fifty films in her career, and they were
a mix of a few terrific ones and a lot of so-so ones - this falls in the
so-so bucket. There is a sequel titled the Imperturbable Iron Phoenix.
