Lady of the Law
Director: Shen Chiang,
Siu Wing
Year: 1971
Rating: 6.0
The production year of this film is confusing.
Most sources such as Letterboxd have it as 1975 but HKMDB has it as 1971
and for me HKMDB is the bible. I gather from one person that it was possibly
filmed in 1971 but not released until 1975 which seems an awfully long delay
but would fit better into the filmography of the female star Shih Szu and
the action choreographer Ching Siu-tung - and the fact that there are two
directors and two choreographers.
In any case, it is a solid enough film but fairly standard for that time.
The choreography is standard as well - both the kung-fu and the wire-work.
Considering that this is at least partly from Ching Siu-tung who is responsible
for many of the great films of the 1980's and 90's I suspect that this is
an early film of his and in HKMDB it is credited as his first as an action
choreographer. There is one scene in which Shih and an opponent fight a lengthy
duel on a stretched wire that I expect was Ching's. It is credited as Shih
Szu's second film which makes sense as well since it was her next film The
Lady Hermit that made her a star. She seems an unlikely film action hero
- trained as a ballet dancer she is very graceful but quite petite and kind
of teddy bearish and never really developed that killer stare that action
actresses like Cheng Pei-pei or Angela Mao had - she does more of a pout
and hrumph sound. Still for a few years she starred in some fine Wuxia films
such as The Rescue and Heroes of Sung - and is most famous in the West for
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires in 1974 - which I need to re-visit.
It begins as many of these kung-fu films do - a father is killed protecting
his small son and the son grows up wanting revenge. An old chestnut but it
often works. As a boy he is saved from being killed by the villain of this
piece Yang Chi-ching, a veteran of a zillion Shaw Brothers films, by a young
girl. You know they will meet again. He grows up to be Lo Lieh who pretends
to be the village idiot so that he can investigate - and in secrecy trains
in martial arts and his specialty passed down from his dying father, the
Fire Dragon technique in which he can throw a blade that explodes into fire.
The skeezy son of Yang, who every one thinks is a respectable citizen, is
raping women by knocking them out with a gas - played by Dean Shek, who would
become a major comedy star in Cantonese comedy in the 80's. The Lady of Law
(Shih Sze) comes to investigate (she was of course the young girl). A master
of martial arts and a willingness to kill without mercy. Just the way we
like. Lo Lieh is framed and the action kicks in - at one point taking him
to the Golden Valley where women are plentiful and in need of a man. Strangely,
his martial arts ability seems to wane and rise - at times he is easily beaten,
at other times he fights off about 30 opponents - and more oddly he really
never uses the Fire Dragon!
