The Singing Killer
Year: 1970
Director: Chang
Cheh
Rating: 7.0
David Chiang is the . . . Singing Killer! All spruced up in his gold lamé
pants, cravat and caps - very 60's cool and fashionable but not exactly the
way that most Shaw fans think of him. For most of us he was one of Shaw's
more popular actors in martial arts and wuxia films chopping down enemies
by the dozens. Chiang had been around forever beginning in the 1950's as
a child actor but once he was no longer a child he languished as an extra
or in small parts in dozens of films - Golden Swallow, Twelve Deadly Coins,
The Silver Fox being a few he did for Shaw. But then director Chang Cheh,
who had become famous with his films starring Jimmy Wang-yu needed a new
star when Wang-yu began producing and directing his own films and he choose
the handsome and slender, scraggly tooth and rather weak looking David Chiang
to star in a series of films beginning in 1969 and then into 1970 - Vengeance,
Dead End, Have Sword, Will Travel. And Chang began pairing Chiang with actor
Ti Lung and it proved to be a hugely popular combo and made both famous.
Here he is as far away from a wuxia hero as you can get - a singer in a rock
and roll band also playing drums and keyboard and lip synching dreadfully.
After every song the girls rush the stage yelling Johnny, Johnny but unlike
most lead singers he takes no groupies because he is still in love with Lily
(Wang Ping) who disappeared on him two years previously. Playing lead guitar
in the band is . . . Ti Lung! So one naturally thinks this is another pairing
but Ti Lung doesn't even stick around for a cup a coffee. Johnny gets a message
that Lily wants to meet him at their old place but it turns out to be a trap.
It seems sweet Johnny used to be a member of vicious gang but is going straight.
The gang is lead by a very nasty Ku Feng along with a young looking Dean
Shek and the moll in the gang is played by Tina Chin-fei, one of the Shaw's
bad girls - sexy up to her eyeballs but she should wear a sign saying Dangerous.
Take a Detour. But men rarely pay attention. She is the opposite of Wang
Ping who almost always got stuck with the goody-goody roles - the girlfriend
who stayed behind or who tries to make her man go right. Much more fun to
be Tina Chin-fei. They accuse him of having stolen Lily's hymen! And now
he has to make it up to her.
His old gang frames Johnny and forces him to participate in a jewel robbery
where coincidence of coincidences Lily is now working! Stealing hymens, stealing
jewels - what's the difference. Everything goes not according to plan and
Johnny and Lily are on the run with a police detective after them. And so
is the gang, To kill him. The detective is played by an almost unrecognizable
Stanley Fung without his trademark his moustache - he was later to become
a well-known comedian for Golden Harvest.
This is a pretty good suspenseful film with a few cheesy songs thrown in.
The action is choreographed by Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai and though nowhere
as violent or bloody as some other Chang Cheh films it is well done. But
what Cheh does well is keeping the tension going and not really giving away
his hand if this will end as tragedy or not. Right before this he had directed
the Singing Thief so perhaps he was going through a musical phase that thankfully
did not last.
