Twelve Golden Coins
Director: Cheng Kang
Year: 1970
Rating: 7.5
This Shaw Brothers film has the slimmest of plots
in which to hang on a huge load of action. And that is just fine with me.
The story sets up the action perfectly and in a manner that makes it all
sensible. It is very patriotic in nature and revolves around a true piece
of Chinese history. It is around 1140 during the Song dynasty and the empire
is under attack by the Jin Dynasty (Tartars) in northern China. Things look
bad for the Songs until a young general named Yue Fei takes over command
and begins to defeat the Jins. But a traitorous official named Qin Hui convinces
the Emperor to recall Yue and sends out twelve messengers with Gold Medallions
(royal edicts) ordering this. Much to my surprise after some research it
turns out that much of this is based on history. But I doubt if what happens
next in the film is.
Patriots learn about this and try their best to stop the messengers with
the Gold Medallions from getting through. This allows one fight after another
to follow and they are all excellent. So many nifty touches during the fighting
from a guillotine hat to hats shooting darts to catching arrows in your teeth
to coins being embedded into a table with an assortment of weapons and names
- The Golden Whip, The Wavering Sword, The Golden Fan and characters named
The Smiling Fox, The Green Bamboo Cane, The Bangling Trio, The Mountain Slicing
Squad and the Ten Swords. The action is constantly inventive and variable
and is very violent with gushes of blood forthcoming.
Perhaps in retrospect the quality of the action isn't too surprising but
at the time the two action choreographers had only a few films on their resume
doing this. These two are Sammo Hung and Simon Chui. The two of them had
worked together on two previous Shaw Brothers films - The Golden Sword (Sammo's
first credit as action choreographer) and Brothers Five. Sammo at the time
was still doing basically bit parts in films and was to gain a reputation
as a choreographer long before he did as an actor. Simon Chui is much lesser
known but was to choreograph a number of Shaw films.
The main patriot is Miao Lung (Yueh Hua) of the Wavering Sword and he has
been killing a number of messengers sent out by the villainous Juxian Hall
that has been created by Qin Hui and stocked with the best martial artists
in the country - well not the best as it turns out. After defeating their
leader (with a bloody handprint left behind), Jin (Ching Miao) takes over
the responsibility of delivering a Gold Medallion. He had been a good man
but the power goes to his head and it turns his former student - Miao Lung
- against him as well as his daughter (Chin Ping) - who is a masterful martial
artist as well. So there is that emotional core to the film as student and
daughter turn against their master and father.
The director is Cheng Kang who directed a few other well-known Shaw films
- the 14 Amazons, Pursuit, King Gambler, Big Brother - and there are so many
familiar faces in this film in roles large and small. Lisa Chiao Chiao, Wang
Hsieh, Yang Chi-ching, Ku Feng, Fan Mei-sheng, Shum Lo, Lee Kwan, Yuen Wo-ping
and a ton of others. It is a huge cast. I thought this was a terrific Wuxia
from start to finish - full of action but just enough of a story to make
you care - and one of Yueh Hua's best performances that I have seen and a
very sympathetic one from cutie pie Chin Ping. I am surprised it doesn't
have a better known reputation. It deserves it from fans of Wuxia.
