The Lady Assassin
Director: Tony Liu Chun-ku
Year: 1983
Rating: 7.0
By the time of this film in 1983 the Shaw Brothers Studio was in its last
innings. In 1986 they discontinued their film productions and instead turned
to the medium of television. It seems hard to imagine that a studio that
so dominated the Hong Kong film landscape during the 1960’s and 70’s had
come to this position. There were a few reasons for this – they did not keep
up with changing taste, their huge galaxy of stars from their glory days
had gotten older, retired, died or moved on from Shaw and they were unable
to replace them with stars of the same caliber, the increasing popularity
of television but primarily I think because of the re-emergence of Cantonese
cinema with Golden Harvest and its stars (Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, the Hui
brothers), The New Wave directors (Tsui Hark) and the burst of clever comedic
films out of the Cinema City studio (the Aces Go Places films). Compared
to these fresh feeling films, the period martial arts films coming out of
Shaw were just not doing it anymore for much of the audience.
That doesn’t mean they were not making some excellent films – in 1983 they
produced the classic films The Lady is the Boss and The Eight Diagram Pole
Fighter, but a lot of their releases fell flat and these many years later
are fairly obscure. In 1984 and 1985 it only got worse. Other than the actors
involved, if you saw Lady Assassin you could easily think it was from a decade
earlier – another period martial arts film with a head scratching plot and
simplistic characters and notions of heroes and villains. By then the wuxia
film was feeling old (though soon to be revitalized by Tsui Hark), the period
kung fu film had run its course after ten years and the ninja film was still
an outlier in Hong Kong.
Lady Assassin though takes large gulps of all three of these action genres
and sprays them on the canvass and much to my surprise the action choreography
was wonderfully inventive and imaginative with large set pieces, some great
one on one duels and is as fast moving as a Lear jet. And there is lots of
it. Maybe too much as it often jumps from one action scene to another with
barely enough time for a cup of coffee.But all the fights are different in
style with action choreographer Yuen Tak constantly adding new wrinkles and
flavors to it. The lengthy final fight is all over the place but in a good
crazy frantic way. The choreography feels like a bridge between the 70’s
and the new breed of martial arts films that were about to come along. Tak
was soon to move to choreographing a much more contemporary type of film
in The Dragon from Russia, Iceman Cometh, Saviour of the Soul and a bunch
of Jet Li films. You can see where that stuff comes from in this film. After
seeing this, I am surprised that it doesn’t seem better known.
That may be because other than the action choreography the film feels quite
rushed and under written. Two of the main characters just disappear in the
film never to reappear or have their absence explained. The ending is to
say the least sudden as if they all had somewhere else to go. There isn’t
much character development beyond good and bad, heroic and villainous. The
Lady Assassin of the title only has the 4th or 5th most time in the film.
She doesn’t even show up till about the 30-minute mark and the chances are
you have likely never heard of the actress – Leanne Lau Suet-wah. There are
though some other more familiar names with good martial arts credentials
– Norman Chu. Jason Pai Piao, Lau Wing, Max Mok, Ku Feng, Johnny Wang, Yuen
Tak and the director Tony Liu (Dreaming the Reality, Angel Terminators 2)
plays the Japanese ninja. Leanne Lau who became a much bigger star in Taiwanese
television than as a film actress is very cute and gives a damn good show
in her action scenes.
The plot is basic – the Manchu Emperor is dying and has chosen his successor
among his fourteen sons. He keeps it a secret though and hides his decision
on a concealed document to be read upon his death. Most of the sons seem
to be out of the running but the Fourth Prince (Lau Wing) and the Fourteenth
Prince (Max Mok) think they have a shot at it. They both have right hand
men (Jason Pai and Norman Chu) who are martial arts masters. Throw into this
mix Ku Feng and his family of martial artists – one being the title character
– who are of Han origin and side with the Fourth Prince because he promises
to help the Hans but he of course betrays them - though his evil bad guy
laugh should have been a tip off. And out of blue the Japanese ninja shows
up just because, well why not. And I should not forget Pearl and Jade – two
other kung fu cuties who are quite deadly. It is as close to non-stop action
as can be legally allowed. Yuen Tak who had only four other films to his
credit at this point was definitely leaving his calling card.
