Within five minutes of the start of this comic
wuxia, your head might be spinning. The viewer is immediately thrown into
a whirlwind of different clans, weapons and characters that you need to sort
through as the film proceeds. Trigonometry is easier to follow. It is yet
another Chang Cheh film, but at the very end of his tenure at Shaws. Only
the Weird Man was left before his departure. A sign that Shaw too was coming
to an end. Chang Cheh oddly began directing for Mainland studios, but none
of the films are well-known. He was a creature of Shaws through his blood
and guts films with Jimmy Wang-yu, the Heroic Bloodshed films pairing Ti
Lung and David Chiang and finally his move to the intricate acrobatics and
kung fu of The Venoms. This isn't a Venoms film even though three of the
actors appear in it. This is fairly playful with some lovely though not plentiful
action. Chang Cheh Light. It feels very stage bound as characters keep
meeting each other or getting to places in the time it takes to cross the
street. All on interior sets. You might think China was the size of a bread
box. And for all the conflicts and confusion, for a Chang Cheh film there
is no great tragedy and it is all's well that ends well.
It begins with assorted groups of men attacking
the outdoor pancake maker (Jaimie Luk). They are looking for the Black Iron
Token. It is a big deal because the possessor of it can ask the mass murderer
Xie Yanke (Wong Lik) for one wish which he must grant. But instead, the Black
Iron Token is hidden in a pancake which is stolen during the melee by a poor
not very bright beggar named Mongrel in the subtitles but Bastard in the
source novel by Jin Yong aka Louis Cha. Mongrel is played by Venom Phillip
Kwok later to gain more fame as Mad Dog in Hard Boiled. Mongrel isn't quite
a simpleton, but comes close right to the end.
Xie takes the Black Iron Token from him,
but is reminded that he now has to give him a wish and in an amusing bit,
tries to trick Mongrel like the Genie into asking him for an easy to grant
favor but Mongrel is either too stupid or too smart to fall for it. So instead,
Xie plots to kill him but accidentally gives him powers. It gets more confusing.
Everyone mistakes Mongrel for his lookalike Shi Zhong-yu and so you have
his parents (Tang Ching, Liu Hui-ling) wanting to take him home, a female
( Candy Wen) and her grandfather (Yang Chi-ching) trying to marry him, a
robber clan headed by another Venom (Sun Chien) trying to make him Chief
for nefarious reasons and another clan (Chan Shen) wanting to execute him
for rape and murder. And poor Mongrel has no clue what is going on but discovers
he has powers. Then the real Shi shows up.
All fairly light with some nicely choreographed
fights from Chiang Sheng (who shows up in the end fight), Kwok and Lu Feng
that is more grace than blood. This isn't ranked that highly in the Chang
Cheh catalog as it is missing his usual high kill count or displays of male
bonding and for reasons I don't know, it was time for him to move on from
Shaw to China. Chang had of course been born in Shanghai before first moving
to Taiwan where he directed the first Mandarin film and then on to Hong Kong.
Maybe he just wanted to go home.
