Aka - Devils to Worry
Aka - King of King's Sword
This Joseph Kuo film has absolutely nothing to do with ghosts, so don't be
expecting a horror film. It is a very standard but well-done wuxia film with
your basic revenge plot and many well-choreographed fights. I was also able
to get a copy with English subs and very good picture quality. It makes so
much difference not having to listen to a bad dub. It was a pleasure watching
this. I wish I could recall where I got it from. YouTube has it but without
subs. It is very much a Taiwanese film and I am unfamiliar with all of the
cast except Chang Ching-ching who I just saw in another Taiwanese film a
few days ago. If you glance at their filmography it shows hundreds of Taiwanese
martial arts films. The villain here, Yi Yuan, has 227 credits on HKMDB and
two others have over 100 - nearly all films I have never heard of. As many
Taiwanese kung fu films as are available, there are hundreds that are not
- gone missing in action.
Meng Ting-shan (Ma Chi) is the Master at the Patience Martial Arts school
and his main lesson is to be patient, don't fight. Kwan Cheun (Chiang Pin)
is out walking with the Master's lovely daughter Shu-mei (Chang Ching-ching)
when they are harassed by a large group of rowdies who keep trying to grab
the girl. He fights them off and fights them off and keeps trying to walk
away. They go back to their Master and tells him they have been bullied!
And he brings another large group of men and in that kung-fu way are able
to get ahead of the duo. Another fight breaks out and finally Kwan uses the
Buddha Palm and kills the head man. Back home he is given shit by the Master
for killing a man and kicked out of the school.
The Master of the other group challenges Meng and he accepts but swine that
they are they try and ambush him with darts, arrows and a swatch of swords.
In a very nifty fight - he catches an arrow with his teeth - he kills them
all. So much for patience. But this is just the beginning of the story. On
the way back he is stopped by the Dare Devil (Yi Yuan) and forced to fight
and with his tricky sword the Dare Devil kills him. The remainder of the
film is basically his students trying to revenge him - and either losing
an arm, an eye or being killed. One after the other.
What they don't know is they are going against the Devil Sword that was made
hundreds of years ago by using a 1,000 year-old tree as firewood, then burnt
in sparkling fire for 49 days, then dipped inside the Green Fountain for
99 days, then brushed with the blood of 108 black dogs and finally to top
it off sharpened with 3000 steel pins. That is one tough sword. Meanwhile,
Kwan who was kicked out has first studied with a Buddhist monk and then a
guy in a cave till he thinks he is ready for revenge. A lot of revenge
is in the works. The fights are all solid, well-choreographed and by the
end even the daughter has taken up a sword for revenge.
