Mission Impossible
Year: 1971
Director: Joseph
Kuo
Rating: 7.0
The Golden Dragon Sword is no ordinary
sword. It has been in the Royal family's possession for hundreds of years
and has not been used for 700 years. It has spiritual powers and can tear
out the insides of a man from five steps away by simply swinging it. But
if the person who uses it is not worthy of it, he will die. So when the sword
is stolen all hell breaks loose and a countrywide search is undertaken. The
thief is identified but he is killed by another person who takes the sword
but he too dies and the sword disappears from sight. Not worthy.
This Shaw Brothers film turns into a
heroic odyssey as Huo Xiao-Fen (Ching Li) takes the sword from her dying
father who writes out instructions in perfect calligraphy in his own blood
on who she has to return the sword to. As a dutiful daughter she begins her
long and perilous journey. Perilous because a lot of people want the power
of the sword but in particular the Jade Child who is already 102 years old
but wants to live a lot longer. He has enormous kung fu powers and the services
of every villain east of the Yangtze River. All killers, all looking for
Huo.
But Huo is not exactly a flower vase,
her martial arts taught from her father are the equal of anyone - except
perhaps the Jade Child. The Jade Child is played by Chen Hung-Lieh and one
look at his face and you know he was born to play bad guys - he was the
Jade Faced Tiger in Come Drink with Me and a slimy villain in so many more
films.
The first hour of the film is near non-stop
action with Huo usually battling off loads of bad guys and getting away.
Then they catch up again and more fighting. She escapes and again they find
her - China being such a small place - and more fighting. It is a bit repetitious
but at the same time some of the action is very clever utilizing all types
of weapons and fighting formations. The only issue is that whether in the
DVD or the film, the action is way too speeded up. When someone runs it is
like watching the Roadrunner. Since most of the non-action scenes seem pretty
normal I expect the action was speeded up - perhaps to hide the fact that
the adorable Ching Li is at most only adequate in martial arts - also helped
by her wearing a veil much of the time to allow doubles I would expect. Still
it is fun watching her throwing men into trees, jumping from tree to tree
and at one point leaping about a 100 feet up like Super Girl. Then at about
the 1 hour mark without any warning it turns into a supernatural tale and
the action comes to an end - but pretty much everyone is dead by then anyways.
This to my surprise was directed by Joseph
Kuo. He is a famous Taiwanese director who made dozens of martial arts films
using mainly Taiwanese actors. But it seems he made two films for the Shaw
Brothers - this one and The Mighty One in 1972. This was clearly filmed
in Taiwan. All in all I thought this was quite good - better if the action
hadn't been speeded up so much - but the first hour is good and though the
last 30 minutes goes off track it does so in a weird little fun way. It
is almost like they got to the end and realized they needed another 20 minutes
and added a while new plot line!
