Shaw Brothers

The Sword and the Lute

In 1965, director Hsu Tseng-Hung helped to reintroduce the swordplay genre with his film Temple Of The Red Lotus and its quickly made sequel Twin Swords (which is not yet out on DVD, sadly). In 1966 and 67, sword-fighting films began to take off, thanks to films from Chang Cheh and King Hu. While the genre was evolving beyond its Saturday-matinee-style roots, Hsu seemed perfectly content to continue to make foam-light adventures.

Although Sword and the Lute is a sequel to Temple and Twin Swords, the main characters from those films barely appear in this third, and final, film in the series. After losing the deadly Phoenix Lute, the Yin Yang Swordsmen (Jimmy Wang Yu and Chin Ping) mostly fade into the background while another group of heroes gets to do all the adventuring.

Led by the unlikely pair of Fung Bo Bo (a pre-teen girl) and Pang Pang (a comic actor, perhaps best known for playing Piggie in the Monkey Goes West films), the chivalrous knights of the film battle the lute stealing bandits, who also have their thieving eyes on the appropriately named Invincible Sword and the magical Seven Star Stone.

It’s not a movie to take too seriously, obviously. The plot moves quickly, the fighting is well choreographed, the bandits are evil and the heroes are good. That’s really all I can ask, and I expect that’s all Hsu Tseng-Hung was aiming for.

The Sword and the Lute
Dir: Hsu Tseng-hung
Released: April 21, 1967

That Man In Chang-an

Terrible. What else can I say? From beginning to end this film is non-stop awfulness. The plot changes every 5 minutes, characters appear and disappear for no reason, the acting is no better than at my local high school and the huge final battle looks like Keystone Kops.

Like The King With My Face, That Man in Chang An was an attempt to capture the Korean market. Featuring a number of Korean actors, parts of the That Man appear to have been shot in Korea, and the film may have been a co-production between Shaw and a Korean studio.

But unlike The King With My Face, That Man is a massive waste of time.

The plot’s not coherent enough to retell. But there’s an evil Empress (who we never see), the maniacal general Lu Kun (Korean actor Park No Sik), a trapped princess (Fang Ying), a heroic maid (Alison Chang Yen, the film’s highlight) and a mysterious masked man (Kim Jin Kyu). There’s also something about trying to overthrow a kingdom and usurp the emperor, and a lot of talk about the town of Chang An (which we also never see, I think). But since the film never invests any time in making the plot make any sense, I don’t see why I should.

Judging by the non-stop maniacal laughter of Lu Kun, and the film’s endless cliff-hangers, director Yen Chun may have been trying to make an old-style serial adventure film. While that can work, That Man forgets to include any adventure.

One of the film’s biggest stumbling blocks is its hero; As the masked avenger, Kim Jin Kyu is the exact opposite of the leading men usually cast in these roles. Too old and completely lacking the necessary physique, he’s utterly unbelievable as a wuxia knight. When he’s masked, the film can avoid the problem by using a stunt double. But in the film’s final battle, he fights without a mask. So Yen Chun resorts to speeding the film up to ludicrous speed just to make the fight look exciting. It doesn’t work.

That Man In Chang-an
Dir: Yen Chun
Released: February 18, 1967

Song Of Tomorrow

Ivy Ling Po’s first modern-day film, Song Of Tomorrow takes a while to settle into its groove, filling its first 45 minutes with various half-baked sub-plots, musical numbers and T&A.

There’s bad belly dancing, a jealous lover, a scheming lothario, an obligation to a dead friend, a sick brother, opium and even a few moments of song and dance.

It’s action packed, to say the least. Shame it doesn’t make much damn sense.

Eventually the movie strips most of this fluff away, leaving only musician Songping (Chiao Chuang) and singer Su Ling (Ivy Ling Po), to struggle through the sorts of tragedies that frequently befall newlywed couples in wenyi dramas — drug addiction, unnamed illnesses and frequent costume changes.

With Ling Po’s move into modern-day films, Shaw Brothers had the opportunity to really shake up the starlet’s image. Instead of being trapped in operatic drag, Ling could change hairstyles and outfits with abandon. Ling leapt at the chance, even designing her own wardrobe for the film. Ling Po’s costume and hair change in almost every scene of Tomorrow — an added bonus for Ivy Ling Po fans.

But if your movie’s main claim to fame is that the star designed her own costumes…well, maybe you’ve got a problem. Perhaps Shaw Brothers wasn’t sure they could rely on Ivy Ling Po’s star power outside of the opera genre. They needn’t have worried; Ling Po, once the movie drops the chaff and lets her act, does an admirable job. If only Tomorrow had dropped the kooky junk at the start, it could have been a more memorable modern-day debut for Ivy Ling Po.

Song Of Tomorrow
Dir: Doe Chin
Released: October 12, 1967

King Cat

On the whole, wuxia adventure flicks like King Cat are all very similar — honorable, super-powered knights errant roam the countryside destroying corrupt officials and upholding the integrity of the martial arts underground.

But, yet, some of these films are a joy to watch while others are pure tedium. With all their similarities, why is King Cat ridiculous fun but others, like Death Valley, are immediately forgettable?

King Cat, I think, succeeds because of its endless creativity; without worrying too much about logic or plausibility, director Hsu Tseng-hung keeps the film moving at a blinding pace, regularly introducing new characters, schemes and reasons to fight.

The result is a fun Saturday morning adventure, in the vein of the Sinbad films that I’ve harbored an unending fondness for since my youth. And how could I hate a film filled with character names like The Variegated Butterfly and The Brocaded Mouse?

After saving the lives of judge Bao and princess Yongan (Ching Li), hero Zhan Zhao (Chang Yi), is dubbed “King Cat” by the Emperor (Chin Feng). But his new nickname offends Bai Yutang (Chiao Chuang), the youngest member of The Five Mice (for the record, the five mice are nicknamed Skyward Mouse, Underground Mouse, Mountain Mouse, Underwater Mouse and Brocaded Mouse).

To avenge this perceived slight, Bai tries to embarrass Zhan by stealing a royal treasure and then mocking the hero while he searches for the jade knicknack. But Bai’s plan goes awry when another fighter, The Variegated Butterfly (Lo Lieh) frames him for rape and murder.

There are some other plots, including a an attempt to overthrow the Emperor and two pairs of mismatched lovers, but they’re all just window dressing for the film’s endless parade of fights and martial arts powers. Hsu is willing to try almost any weird effect, no matter how bizarre it looks on screen. My favorite is when Zhan drinks wine from a cup three feet from his mouth. Yes, it looks like he’s drooling on himself; but I appreciate the attempt.

Ridiculous but fun — those three words sum up King Cat perfectly. By keeping the movie light, Hsu overcomes its many weaknesses. Not every film is so lucky.

King Cat
Dir: Hsu Tseng-hung
Released: December 5, 1967

The Goddess Of Mercy

Imagine being entirely ignorant of Moses and watching The Ten Commandments and you’ll have a rough idea of what watching The Goddess Of Mercy is like for non-Buddhists. Now take out all of the scenes where Moses acts like a jerk, and you’ll start to grasp how the film’s shallowness.

Made as a co-production with South Korea, Goddess tells the story of religious icon Kuan Yin, he bodhisattva of compassion, who, in her earthly form of Li Miao Shan, brought Buddhism to ancient China and ascended into heaven. Shaw Brothers knew that their Chinese (and, I assume, Korean) audiences would already know the story of Kuan Yin, so they replaced all of the exposition with spectacle.^gm1

The result is a movie that, by 1967 Shaw Brothers standards, is chock-a-block with special effects — magical bridges appear from nowhere, force fields protect besieged peasants, battles rage over wide-open plains. Filmed mostly in South Korea, Goddess takes advantage of the new scenery and delivers some nice outdoor visuals.

The downside to all these glamour shots is a painfully simplistic story that neglects to fill in the important details. For example, we never see Miao convert to Buddhism. In one scene she says she’s interested and later on she’s a committed follower.

Any film about religious struggle needs to live in the grey areas where faith falters; how else are human audiences going to sympathize with the characters? Goddess, however, banishes grey and only recognizes black and white. Miao and the other Buddhists are presented as unfailing saints while non-believers twist their Snidely Whiplash mustaches and cackle over slaughtered farmers.

The closest Goddess comes to critiquing Miao is in a odd dance number. After Miao and her dancers finish singing the praises of Buddhism, her militaristic father (Kim Song-ho) beats out a vicious martial tattoo while his soldiers dance and sing a pean to killing and murder. It’s an odd scene, but it has more life than the rest of the film.

While shooting in Korea, Shaw Brothers made the film twice. Once with longtime Chinese box office queen Li Li-hua in the starring role, and a second time with a Korean actress (whose name I stupidly forgot to write down) taking the lead. Celestial, sadly, has only released the Hong Kong version. I’d be interested to see if the Korean version gave Miao any more depth than the sanctimonious Hong Kong release.

The Goddess Of Mercy
Dir: Shin Sang Okk, Lim Won Sik
Released: March 21, 1967

^gm1The audiences may not have been that familiar with the story presented by the Shaw production. None of the Kuan Yin myths that I’ve read match the version told in this film. But audiences certainly would have known who Kuan Yin was.

Summons To Death

One look at the costumes reveals everything you need to know about this film. See-through harem outfits, gold lamé capes and tuxedos galore. The trappings of the stylish spy film are obvious from the first frame.

But Summons To Death's hero, Tang Lui “The Owl” (Tang Ching), isn’t a spy. He’s a crook. And, judging by his super-deluxe bachelor pad, complete with circular bed and a robot to massage him during his steam baths, he’s successful at his job.

Set in the modern day, Summons To Death nonetheless springs from the same story used by a majority of historical wuxia novels and movies—A mostly honorable criminal becomes embroiled in and defeats a illicit scheme that offends the rules of the villainous underground. Summons To Death simply takes the stock plot, sets it in the present and mixes in the swank accouterments of a James Bond film.

The unsavory conspiracy that Tang must stop features pirates (real pirates, wearing jaunty headbands and flying a yellow Jolly Rodger while sailing and plundering the Hong Kong bay), a hidden treasure and the parts of a treasure map that change hands innumerable times.

Tang, who is entangled in the plot by accident, comes to the aid of Gin Mei Li (Tina Chin Fei), long-lost sister of the head pirate, to protect her from the unscrupulous Ying Nian (Fanny Fan) and her assistant Kwok (Wang Hsieh). No one ever asks why pirates are sailing around Hong Kong or why they couldn’t just store their treasure in a safety deposit box like everyone else.

Obviously, those expecting any logic in Summons will be disappointed quickly. The story exists only to move its characters from one dangerous situation, and one bizarre outfit, to another. The sartorial excesses of Summons To Death quickly assume center stage, and must be seen to be believed.

Here’s Fanny Fan modeling the latest in I Dream Of Jeannie fashion, complete with a head turban that ties into a tube top.

And here’s Fanny Fan’s first boyfriend, fresh from plundering the gold lamé store.

When Gin Mei Li needs to go on a night time raid, she picks the latest ninja apparel, perfect for camouflaging yourself as a burnt christmas tree. This furred hood/cape/hoop skirt combo easily wins the weirdest outfit award. Also note her high-heeled boots. Gin Mei Li is never without her heels, even when she goes spelunking in the film’s finale.

While I’m sure that, forty years from now, critics will mock the costumes chosen for today’s movies, I doubt that any of them will find apparel as strange as the Gin Mei Li’s christmas tree hood.

The key for enjoying Summons To Death is the same as it is for any Bond film, turn off your brain and enjoy the scenery. Summons never makes any sense, but its constant inventiveness at least keeps it fun.

Summons To Death
Dir: Lo Wei
Released: November 23, 1967

The Assassin

To cap their most prolific year to date (42 films in 1967), Shaw Brothers turned to the men most responsible for the studios swelling coffers, director Chang Cheh and actor Jimmy Wang Yu. 5 months earlier, their film The One-Armed Swordsman started Chang’s streak of million-dollar box-office smashes. In his follow-up, Chang laid bare the force driving the studio’s growth—the Japanese film industry.

Run Run Shaw admired, and mirrored, Japanese studios, molding much of Shaw Brothers to follow their example. It was in 1967 that this emulation really began to payoff. Shaw’s two imported Japanese directors, Inoue Umetsugu and Kô Nakihara, made their first films for Shaw Brothers in 1967, and the studio’s biggest hit of the year, The One-Armed Swordsman was a direct descendant of Japan’s most popular handicapped swordsman, Zatoichi.

In The Assassin, director Chang continued the Japanification of Shaw Brothers studio, taking the most Chinese story he could find (an ancient tale of a political assassin and his devoted sister) and making every effort to make it appear Japanese.

Over the film’s introduction, which explains the political turmoil of the “Warring States” period, Japanese music plays¹. And as hero Nie Zheng (Jimmy Wang Yu) moves from his quiet, modest home up through the houses of power, the sets continually mimic those seen in Japanese samurai films.

These Japanese sets provide the background for the very Chinese story of Nie Zheng, a hot-headed youth who wants, like all hot-headed youth, to make his mark in history. But when fate, in the form of ex-minister Yen Chung-Tzu (Tien Feng), comes calling, Nie honorably puts history on the back burner until he finishes providing for his mother and sister (Li Hsiang-chun), who later repays her brother’s filial piety.

Cheng later dismissed the Japanese stylistics of The Assassin as artistic posturing, and most current writing about The Assassin details the film’s allegories of Hong Kong’s 1967 riots and China’s growing Cultural Revolution². But from my modern perspective, the film’s allegories don’t look that different from all of Chang’s other films that feature frustrated youth who make their names through bonded friendships, bountiful slaughter and beautiful suicide. For me, it’s the film’s aesthetics that make it unique.

The Assassin
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: December 22, 1967

¹I’m making some educated guesses about the music in The Assassin. Like some of the other Celestial DVD releases, most of the film’s original music and sound effects have been replaced with hideous, ill-conceived crap. These changes make the film nearly unwatchable. However, the Japanese music over the credits sounds original.

²I might be making up Chang’s dismissal of this film. I don’t currently have access to my copy of Chang Cheh’s autobiography. Once I can get my hands on it, I’ll confirm this statement.

Lady Jade Locket

Between 1960, when Shaw Brothers released Enchanting Shadow, its first supernatural romance, and 1967, when they released Lady Jade Locket, much had changed. Shadow was little more than a romance with badly-executed supernatural elements fused on. Lady Jade Locket integrates its romantic sighs and spooky frights, resulting in a more entertaining film.

On the run from a corrupt government official, Yang Yue Wei (Li Li-Hua, whose casting as a man in a non-Haungmei film suggests the popular of the opera genre) seeks refuge in an abandoned school. There, he meets Lian Suo (Li Ching), the ghost of a woman who died while avenging her father’s murder.

Yang, pursued by bounty hunters, and Lian, chased by the official of the netherworld, quickly fall in love; but the unbridgeable gap between the living and the dead complicates their romance.

Also complicating matters are the films half-dozen sub-plots. The basic story, comes from Pu Songling’s Tales From A Chinese Studio and had been made once before by Shaw & Sons studio in 1954. But Lady Jade Locket ditches much of the original tale, replacing it with political intrigue and wuxia-esque heroes. Overstuffing a simple film with twists, turns and diversions is not a problem specific to Shaw Brothers; but the studio was certainly plagued by the problem in the late 1960s.

Towards the end of the film, when the action shifts to the world of the dead, the film begins to experiment, featuring notably spooky and synthie music and twisted camera positions to capture the devious officials of Hell. These are the film’s highlights, and point the way to the torrent of supernatural films to come in the late 70s and early 80s. Tsui Hark may have used the tale of Enchanting Shadow for Chinese Ghost Story, but he used the spirit of Lady Jade Locket.

Lady Jade Locket
Dir: Yan Jun
Released: December 9, 1967

Interpol

The first of Kô Nakihara’s four films for Shaw Brothers, Interpol was a remake of one of the director’s earlier Japanese films, although it would be hard to spot its Japanese origins; the film is almost indistinguishable from every other James Bond ripoff made in the 1960s.

Dashing lothario spy? Check. Random gadgets? Check. Attractive women? Check. Ruthless, stylish villains? Check. Interpol's biggest deviation from the established formula is the addition of a cowering, girl-shy assistant, Huang Mao (Li Kun).

Interpol exceeds the low bar set by Shaw’s earlier spy efforts (Golden Buddha, Black Falcon) simply by jettisoning star Paul Chang Chung and bringing on Shaw newcomer Tang Ching, who adds a rakish, arrogant charm that the bland Chang could never muster.

The plot does little but fill up time with a story about counterfeiters, a mysterious woman (Margaret Tu Chuan) and a ship full of cars. It never makes much sense, but it never becomes so nonsensical that it gets in the way. Sadly, it squanders several opportunities for exotic travel. Some location shooting in Manila or Tokyo would have helped give the movie some more personality.

1967 was Shaw’s year for spy films, with the studio releasing about a half-dozen Bond-esque films. The fad died quickly; 1968 saw only one or two spy movies. Perhaps if the films were of higher quality, the genre would have stuck around.

Interpol
Dir: Yang Shuxi (Chinese pseudonym for Kô Nakahira)
Released: July 12, 1967

The Silent Swordsman

I’ll skip to the chase—The Silent Swordsman is awful. Really, really awful. Nonsensical, tedious and brain-curlingly stupid, it’s 90 minutes of film that makes me question my goal of watching all of the Shaw DVDs.

Oh well. It’s too late now.

In the early 60s, Shaw Brothers was a female-focused studio in a life-or-death battle with MP & GI. By the end of the decade, with the death of MP & GI’s chief and the success of Chang Cheh’s male-dominated film, Shaw was the dominant studio of Hong Kong and southeast Asia. The years of that transformation, roughly 1966-1968, produced a lot of confused films that weren’t sure which era to call home.

Silent Swordsman's director, Kao Li, was firmly planted in the older era. The writer of Shaw’s first haungmei hit, Diau Charn, he later directed a trilogy of yellow plum operas. This film would be his first foray into wuxia pian.

Chang Yi, the film’s star, was a young actor whose training with Beijing Opera training, a perfect fit for the studio’s new need for male talent with physical prowess. He worked steadily (although mostly outside of the Shaw studio) throughout the kung fu-mad 70s. If he’d arrived at Shaw 5 years earlier, when the studio only cast milquetoast men, he would have had a hard time finding a home.

The film’s two female stars, Yu Hui and Shu Pei Pei, both landed Shaw contracts after winning beauty contests. Their lack of acting experience would have been a liability in the early 60s, when actresses carried the film. But in the new Shaw studio, beauty was more important.

The story, which could easily be split into 5 different movies, reflects the film’s schizophrenic nature. Beginning as a swordplay revenge drama, the plot meanders and diverges until it becomes, in no particular order, a musical, a romance and a melodramatic tragedy. A plot summary would run several pages.

By the time all of these stories finally came to their absurd close, I was happy to see that appropriate motto, “Another Shaw Production.” If only it knew which Shaw Brothers it was a production of.

The Silent Swordsman
Dir: Kao Li
Released: September 14, 1967