This is in many ways a really silly film that is filled to the brim with
pretty much everything except a herd of charging elephants. Oh wait. It had
that too. It eventually won me over to its side simply with its imagination
and myriad of off beat characters. The dubbing is of course always an issue
and can make a serious film seem cheap. I hate dubbing if it can be avoided
but at the same time I am glad that way back when some American company dubbed
these films and released them thus saving these films because I don't think
a lot of them are available in their original language any more. The dubbed
versions are the only ones still around. The dubbing here is not too bad for
the main characters though some of the others it verges on the ridiculous.
In the opening frame, we are given a little history to give the story some
background. I looked it up and at least a portion of it may be true or is
at least based on rumor. After four years the second Ming Emperor Jianwen
(1398 - 1402) has been dethroned and has disappeared. True. And the new Emperor
his brother wants him found and returned to the throne. Not true. The Emperor
Yongle had deposed Jianwen and it was highly unlikely he wanted him back.
Yongle ruled for 22 years. So putting aside historical accuracy, there is
a gist of possibility to the tale. Yongle (in the movie) assigns Eunuch Chen
Ho (Shih Chung-Tien) to lead an expedition to find his brother who is thought
to have gone west. One of the new recruits is a strong lad who challenges
the General (Chiang Pin) to an arm wrestling match to get in. He wins through
trickery - even more so than any one seems to notice behind his made up eyes.
He is in fact a she who wants to go along for reasons we never find out till
the very end. He/she is played by the Ivy Ling-po who some fifteen years previously
had pulled the same trick as Mulan in the 1964 Shaw film Lady General Hua
Mulan.
It wasn't the first time that Ivy Ling-po played with gender - she was in
perhaps the most beloved Hong Kong film of all time, The Love Eterne, in which
she plays a man - not a disguised man but the male in the film and the love
of a woman. It was a Chinese opera of course where this sort of thing was
allowed. In the old days of the opera, men often took on female roles but
here it was reversed. The film plays with this gender switching as she has
to keep hiding her sex and finds the General oddly very attracted to her.
The expedition has all sorts of adventures as it travels westward and run-ins
with a multiple group of adversaries - one being a group of shaven headed
female warriors - another one being headed by arch-villain Lo Lieh who wants
to also find the missing Emperor and keeps killing his own men for no reason
at all - just a habit. Eventually, they get to Thailand but as they get closer
to their destination a bunch of Thai kick boxers and a Thai tigress are out
to kill them - not to mention those elephants who are stopped in their tracks
with a Tarzan like yell by the Eunuch. Not sure if that is a special ability
that Eunuchs have.
There is lots of action throughout but particularly in the final 40 minutes
that is very good - knives being shot out of mouths, traps, darts and traditional
wuxia swordplay, acrobatics and flying. It is choreographed by Han Ying-chieh
(Come Drink with Me, A Touch of Zen, The Big Boss and Dragon Inn to his credit)
who also plays the black-clad bad guy near the end. By 1977 he was nearing
the end of his career and perhaps some of his action feels old fashioned compared
to what was the state of choreography but I have always found his scenes
beautifully laid out, well planned and graceful. As far as I can tell he
never moved into the Shaw orbit but pretty much stayed working in Taiwan.
This is just a lot of fun with a surprise twist at the end that I did not
see coming.
