Interesting
that this Shaw Brothers film was directed by Doe Ching. His name may
not mean much even to Hong Kong film fans, but he was a top director of dramas
in the 1950s to the 60s, He had actually begun his career for Shaw in 1953
and directed over a dozen films for them. Then in 1957 he jumped ship to
the new studio on the block, Cathay. I don't think any of his early Shaw
films are available but a few of his Cathay films are - the classic Our Sister
Hedy being the best known. Then it was back to Shaw for a few classic melodramas
and musicals - The Blue and the Black, Love Without End, Les Belles, Love
Parade and a few more dramas. Then Shaw asked him to make a wuxia and apparently
it killed him. He died during filming at the age of 53.
Such a shame. I don't know how far he got
in the film before Griffin Yueh Feng took over the reins of the film. The
two of them had actually collaborated on a film released in 1953 titled Rainbow
Rhythms starring the famous singer/actress Zhou Xuan (Street Angel, Sorrows
of the Forbidden City). Doe was considered a great director of female films
and worked with many of the best Hong Kong actresses - Grace Chang, Lucilla
Yu Ming, Jeanette Lin, Julie Yeh, Diana Chang, Linda Lin Dai, Lily Ho, Ivy
Ling Po, Betty Loh Tih and Ching Li, who he had just worked with on When
the Clouds Roll By. I suspect that Griffin has a lot to do with this. He
was a veteran director with credits going back to the 1930s and had directed
every genre - with action films as well such as The Dragon Creek, Rape of
the Sword and The Magnificent Swordsman. At any rate, this is a pretty solid
wuxia with your typical revenge plot, a ton of sword fighting, a fair amount
of spurting blood and a lot of minions willing to die. It lacks the good
memorable one on one fight against an equal opponent and it has a lot of
poor transitions in the film - characters running from town to town to a
hideout at the speed of light - and it never answers the main question -
why was the opening duel fought.
The film begins with that duel. Two men
slowly take off their jackets and politely ask one another to start. Formalities
done, they go at one another - but then in my mind (Chang) pulls a dirty
trick and uses his knife on a string to kill Hero Lu with a flick of his
wrist. But he is so disgusted with himself that he retires from the Boxer
World and becomes of all things a sedan hauler. He lives with his mother
and father. One night while taking the governor in his sedan, they are attacked
by loads of the Ghost Gang in their hideous masks who kill the governor and
then say, let's kill the drivers. Chang decides to come out of retirement
and kills them all with sword or blows to the neck. Chang is played by Ling
Yun, who has never really convinced me of his action bonifides. He is ok
with the sword but his kung fu never looks authentic. After killing them
all, he rushes home to tell his parents to pack up. Time to move. But
before doing so, the Ghost Gang kills mom and dad and he swears revenge.
To kill them all.
And much of the remainder of the film is
him doing exactly that. He does find the time to meet up with Yin-erh, the
daughter of a traveling family of entertainers. Played by the lovely Ching
Li who immediately falls in love with him and his sword. At one point, she
asks him to teach her martial arts, so that she too can get her pound of
flesh. That would have been an interesting twist, but it is forgotten. In
the end, she rushes to him, undoes her hair to allow it to drop down and
I think we know what happens after that. Fairly enjoyable, but it really
needed that one great fight at the end. Perhaps, they just wanted to finish
the film at that point. Appearing also is Chen Hung-lieh as a dirty rat of
course and Ching Miao as Yin-erh's father.
