Killer Clans
   
 
Director: Chor Yuen
Year:  1976
Rating: 8.0
Killer Clans from 1976 was the first Wuxia film that Chor Yuen directed for the Shaw Brothers though this was fairly late in the Shaw cycle of Wuxia films that went back to King Hu in the mid-1960’s. Soon after Come Drink with Me in 1966 King Hu left Shaw to make his further wuxia films in Taiwan and Chang Cheh took up that mantle. Chang dominated that genre with such films as the One-Armed Swordsmen films and many more until in the mid-1970’s Chang moved more towards kung-fu films with the Venoms and his discovery of Alexander Fu Sheng. So, at that point Chor Yuen was asked by Run Run Shaw to direct a Wuxia film. Over the next six years Yuen was to direct a number of them with many are now considered classic wuxia films. His style was very different than Chang Cheh’s – more elegant, less violent and graphic, less masculine and with stronger plots.



Part of the reason for his success and the solid plots was Chor’s adaptations of Gu Long novels. Gu Long was a very popular and prolific writer of wuxia novels beginning in the 1960’s. Chor was to make 17 films based on Gu Long’s work. Here is a list of them that I “borrowed” off of a forum.

1976 03 20 - Killer Clans
1976 07 10 - Magic Blade
1977 03 05 - Clans of Intrigue
1977 05 07 - Jade Tiger
1977 07 07 - Death Duel
1977 10 14 - Sentimental Swordsman
1977 12 22 - Pursuit of Vengeance
1978 02 19 - Clan of Amazons
1978 07 08 - Legend of The Bat
1978 11 08 - Swordsman And Enchantress
1979 01 25 - Full Moon Scimitar
1979 05 30 - Murder Plot
1979 07 19 - Proud Twins
1980 07 24 - Heroes Shed No Tears
1981 01 31 - Return of The Sentimental Swordsman
1981 10 22 - Duel of The Century
1982 05 13 - Perils of The Sentimental Swordsman
1982 06 17 - Spirit of The Sword



Chor Yuen was a famous director though long before he began his series of Wuxia films. His father Cheung Wood-yan had been a famous Cantonese actor in the 1950’s and 60’s and Chor Yuen grew up in the film life often accompanying his father to the studio. He began as an assistant director and directed his first solo film at the age of 23 in 1959 – The Natural Son. Over the next decade he was to make loads of films - a number of what are considered classic Cantonese films – primarily conservative family melodramas though he also jumped on the James Bond express with The Black Rose and Spy with My Face starring Connie Chan.



By the end of the 60’s Cantonese films were dead so Chor joined up with the Mandarin speaking Cathay film studio to make four films, but Cathay too was entering its final days – but one of the films he made was Cold Blade, his first wuxia film. In 1971 Chor joined the Shaw Brothers and within two years had two classics to his name – the fabulous, sexy and stylish Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan in 1972 and The House of 72 Tenants in 1973. The House of 72 Tenants was important because it was shot in Cantonese, was a huge hit and was one of the important factors in the resurgence of Cantonese cinema. Over the next few years Chor went back to his social melodramas and they all bombed until this film.



Clan of Killers is a brilliant film. It is so good in fact that you barely notice how little action there is until the finale where it explodes on the screen. The story is so involving and complicated with more characters than a Russian epic novel that constantly turn things around on the viewer with betrayals, hidden doorways, fantastic escapes, more betrayals, unrealized love, sacrifice and unexpected heroism that you are just swept up in all of it. At a very simplistic level it is about two extended clans out to get one another and also off to the side a Clan of Assassins with a contract to kill the head of one of them. Within each clan are killers and betrayers. You get a hint at what Gu Long’s story must be like as it moves from character to character opening little sub-plots and closing them and leaving you wishing for more.



A solid cast of some well-know Shaw actors - Ku Feng as the wily head of one clan, Yueh Hua as his righthand man, Ching Li as his daughter, Lo Lieh as his specialist killer, Chen Ping as the head of the Assassin Guild, Chung Wah as her main assassin, Wang Hsieh as head of the other clan and making smaller appearances were a young Danny Lee, Yang Chi-ching, Ching Miao, Fan Mei-shang, Ling Yun, Teresa Ha-ping and Tin Ching.