Shaw Brothers

The Swordmates

Another almost entirely forgettable low-grade wuxia film starring people who have done better work in better films. Shaw Brothers made so many of these in the late 60s that it’s honestly hard to figure out which one is which, or come up with something new to say for each review.

What makes writing about these films even trickier is that they are so incredibly bland. Far from creative, but also far from terrible. They just coast along in the muddy, uninteresting middle of the road. Blah.

But, for a few minutes at least, Swordmades looked like it was going to break out from the mediocre pack. After establishing a traditional “swordsman chasing a secret message” plot, the film quickly veered off in a new direction, tentatively exploring the petty jealousies that drive the women of the bandit clan; it appeared that the film’s second act would be instigated by hatred that bandit mistress Hsin-yin (Chiu Sam-Yin) feels towards her stepdaughter, the film’s hero, Yan-niang (Chin Ping).

But that story is quickly supplanted by more by-the-book plotting — vicious criminals, long-lost siblings, etc. Nothing new to see here, move along.

However, even unoriginal movies can be made well. But Swordmates never strives for that sort of quality. It’s content being a jambalaya of cliches — filling the time, but leaving no impression.

Swordmates appears to be the only Shaw Brothers movie directed by Cheung Ying, about whom I can find very little information. An actor by trade, Cheung Ying directed a few Cantonese movies in the '50s and '60s. Although he acted in films for over 50 years, The Swordmates was the last film he directed.

Cheung’s Cantonese background, along with that of co-director and writer Poon Faan, highlight Shaw Brother’s evolution from a northern, Mandarin-style studio to a southern, Cantonese one. Had the film been better, and a touch more Cantonese, perhaps it would be as well remembered as The Chinese Boxer.

The Swordmates
Dir: Cheung Ying
Released: October 18, 1969

Twin Blades of Doom

As swordplay movies moved from cutting edge cinema to an over-saturated cliche, other genres withered and died. And directors who’d made their careers in these newly-extinct genre either had to change with the times or fade into obsolescence.

Doe Chin, who had spent over 20 years directing and writing romantic dramas and comedies, ended his classic-studded career with Twin Blades of Doom, a film that is neither romantic, funny or good.

I’m not suggesting that directors should be restricted to a genre. Every artist should have the freedom to explore. But considering the rigorous contract system in place at Shaw Brothers, I doubt that Doe Chin directed this film out of a strong desire to make wuxia films. Most likely a swordplay film needed to be made, and Doe was without a project. Thus Twin Blades of Doom was born.

A thoroughly standard wuxia story buried under dozens of layers of dead ends and plot twists, Twin Blades of Doom fails to generate much interest at any level. Even the romance between its leads, Chang (Ling Yun) and Yin-erh (Cheng Lee), fizzles. Despite Doe Chin’s previous experience with romantic films, there’s not much he can do with a script as muddle-headed as this one.

Sadly, Doe Chin never even got to finish Twin Blades of Doom. He died of stomach cancer before completing the film. Maybe he could have made the transition from romances to wuxia, given a better script and more time. Instead, all we have the rather ill-fitting eulogy, Twin Blades of Doom.

Twin Blades of Doom
Dir: Doe Chin/Yue Feng
Released: January 1, 1969

King Eagle

If I were to try to sum up Chang Cheh’s films in a single word, it would be 'erratic'. Before watching one of his movies, there is no way of telling what you’re in for. The same team of director, screenwriter, action directors and actors could turn out masterpieces just as easily as they could stinkers.

So I flipped the Chang Cheh coin with King Eagle and thankfully it came up heads—the team delivers a fun swordplay wuxia built on strong performances from Ti Lung and Li Ching and a host of entertaining weapons.

After the leader of a martial arts clan is assassinated, wandering hero Jin (Ti Lung) learns the killer’s identity, but refuses to get involved. Stoic and aloof, Jin’s only interested in events that affect him personally. Clan business is not his concern.

When the killer’s henchmen slaughter some of Jin’s friends, it would appear that the hero will finally meddle in the clan’s affairs. But no, he only wants to kill the henchmen. Then it’s back to his normal state of disinterest.

It’s not until he meets and falls for Yuk Lin (Li Ching), 8th chief of the clan and sister of the evil Bing Er (also Li Ching), that Jin’s heart stirs him action.

It’s Ti Lung’s unflappable stoniness, and his evolution to heartbroken hero, that makes King Eagle one of Chang Cheh’s good films. More often than not, the work of the lead actors indicates if the film will be a good Chang effort or not. Perhaps inspired by Chang’s enthusiasm, his favorite actors put out the extra effort that makes a film shine. Or maybe it’s the actors that inspired Chang. In a collaborative medium like film making, it was probably a bit of both.

King Eagle
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: January 1, 1971

The Heroic Ones

Chang Cheh’s most famous films from the 1960s are known for their strong solitary heroes — Jimmy Wang Yu, Ti Lung and David Chiang. But in the 1970s, his most popular movies featured large groups — such as Five Deadly Venoms or the huge ensemble in The Water Margin.

The Heroic Ones was Chang’s first step from his solo-hero films to his Gang Of Manly Men movies. Instead of a single, vengeance-minded man, The Heroic Ones features the super-masculine 13 Generals and their warfare-obsessed father King Li (Ku Feng).

Fourteen stars is a big change from a single hero, but the story of Heroic Ones only focuses on 4 or 5 people, with the remaining actors serving as mostly nameless extras, ready to die as needed.

The 13 Generals are all sons (biological and adopted) of King Li, who has raised them all to be military masters. But his 13th son, Li Tsun Hsiao (David Chiang), outshines them all at tests of manliness. He drinks, fights and grabs more glory than all his other brothers combined.

Fighting two different attempts to overthrow the Tang emperor, as well as handling their own internal struggles, the 13 Generals get plenty of chances to show off their martial arts skills. And, just like the size of the cast, the fight scenes show Chang’s evolving style and point the way to the kung fu films of the 1970s.

Eschewing most of the high-camp fantasy seen in wuxia films of the 1960s, action directors Lau Kar-Wing, Liu Chia-Lang and Tong Gaai keep the swordplay powerful but realistic. Writer, actor and filmmaker Bey Logan says that the fighting in The Heroic Ones uses actual martial arts styles. I’ll have to take his word on it.

The Heroic Ones may presage the cinematic trends of the 70s, but it’s not that good of a film judged on its own merits. Plot threads appear and disappear, the brothers mostly congeal into an undifferentiated mass and the resolution is far from satisfying. Chang seems out of his element, which isn’t a surprise, and the film suffers from its lack of focus. But Chang would quickly adapt, as would the rest of Hong Kong cinema.

The Heroic Ones
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: August 14, 1970

The Fastest Sword

Director Pan Lei came to Shaw Brothers studio after a career in writing. Before joining Shaw in the early 1960s, Pan had started his own literary journal in Taiwan, won awards for his writing and had begun writing and directing movies.

As Shaw Brothers' most literary director, it’s no surprise that Pan Lei’s first wuxia film, The Fastest Sword, spends less time on fighting and more time on talking. Instead of supernatural swords, magical stones and flying heroes, The Fastest Sword delivers a simple story done exceptionally well.

As China’s best swordsman, the arrogant and hot-tempered Ding Menghao (Lu Ping) is under constant attack by fighters lusting after his title. Ding’s speed and brute force always saves his life, but after he loses a bet with a wandering monk, Ding’s forced to spend the next three years learning humility and grace.

Once free, the now humble Ding can’t escape those that want his title. Even when he tries not to fight, his challengers end up dead. Vowing never to draw his sword again, he goes into hiding, but even then he can’t escape his most relentless pursuers.

Based on the US western The Gunfighter, The Fastest Sword deviates strongly from the usual wuxia script. Ding’s sword is a burden, and he looks positively pained whenever he’s forced to draw. The film’s final fight, usually a flashing blur of gleaming blades in typical wuxia, combines long slow-mo shots of fencing with close-ups of Ding’s distraught face. The result is an examination of the beauty and savagery of fighting, instead of a special-effects showcase.

Pan Lei never became a top name director at Shaw Brothers. After making over a dozen films in the late 60s and early 70s, he began producing and writing films with Lo Wei, director of some of Shaw Brothers' worst films. The pair started making films staring newcomer Jackie Chan. Whatever happened to that guy?

The Fastest Sword
Dir: Pan Lei
Released: December 11, 1968

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

Vengeance!

Chang Cheh bookends Vengeance! with battle scenes from Chinese operas in which the dying hero, streaming blood, fights his enemies until the bitter end. And, just in case we missed the similarities between these operatic snippets and the film we’re watching, Chang intercuts plenty of opera into the film’s many battles.

But, as hard as he tries, Chang never quite builds a flawless bridge connectiong Chinese Opera and his heroic bloodshed genre flicks. The Japanese influences are too obvious; the almost ritual disemboweling, the white robes, the unquestioned honor of dying as a warrior. The movie could as easily be called Seppuku!.

Vengeance! is Chang’s revenge genre at it’s most stripped down. No time is wasted on elaborate plot twists or other frivolities. All of the film’s energy is focused on its elaborate and entertaining fights—the story (Yulou (Ti Lung) is killed for defending his wife’s honor so his brother, Xiaolou (David Chiang), comes to avenge the murder by killing everyone involved) is merely a formality.

That terseness carries over to Chiang; his stern and streamlined performance breaks from the raffish, genial wanderer he played in The Wandering Swordsman. In Vengeance! Chiang’s only moments of happiness come from his love, Zhengfeng (Wang Ping). The rest of the time he’s a dour force of nature.

But Zhengfeng never poses much of threat to Xiaolou’s suicidal revenge trip; nothing can get between Xiaolou and his glorious ending. And the film delivers the goods we’ve anticipated since seeing the blood-soaked opening title — bowels are rent, blood is squirt, vengeance is executed. With an title as imperative as Vengeance!, what other options are there?

Vengeance!
Released: May 14, 1970
Dir: Chang Cheh

The Wandering Swordsman

The Wandering Swordsman is a prime example that Chang Cheh’s movies didn’t succeed because of their originality but because of their stars.

In my review of Chang’s 1969 film The Flying Dagger I talked a bit about the repetitious nature of Chang Cheh’s films. Unsurprisingly The Wandering Swordsman, Chang’s first film of 1970 looks an awful lot like his movies from 1969. Except for one major difference – Wandering Swordsman is a ton of fun to watch.

Swordsman's energy comes solely from its star, David Chiang who paints the directionless hero with a combination of indolence, arrogance and charm. After stumbling into a robbery, he robs the robbers only to give the loot to a group of destitute farmers. From there he lopes from crisis to crisis, relying on his quick wits and a sheepish, wolf-hiding grin to keep him out of trouble.

This laid-back approach works pretty well until he crosses “Fail-Safe” Kung (Chang Pei Shan) and his band of wonderfully gimmicky criminals (which include Wu Ma in a ridiculous beard and some guy wearing gigantic gold hands) who are plotting to steal treasure form under the nose of security expert Chief Jiang (Cheng Lei) and his sister Siao Jiang Ning (Lily Li).

If you’ve seen any Chang Cheh film, the rest of the plot is obvious. But, even with the film’s ending a foregone conclusion, David Chiang keeps the movie bopping along with a maniacal grin. Performances like this are what give me hope for all the Chang Cheh movies I have yet to watch.

The Wandering Swordsman
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: February 4, 1970

The Flying Dagger

Chang Cheh was a director with a handful of themes that fascinated him throughout his career — loner heroes, honorable deaths and male bonding. His intense focus makes his movies ripe for auteur analysis, but it also means that, after a while, all of his films start to look the same.

Chang could break out of his rut when he wanted to; among the 6 films he released in 1969 were unique, if not always good, features like The Singing Thief and Dead End.

Yes, 6 films in 1969. Could anyone be so endlessly creative that they could write and direct a distinctive movie every 2 months? When you’re the most popular director at a studio that prides itself on its efficient, factory-like production methods, your films are going to start looking like factory products.

So if The Flying Dagger looks like a lifeless, paint-by-numbers rehash of better Chang Cheh films it’s certainly understandable.

The plot is cookie cutter Chang — Lo Lieh stars as the morally ambiguous, antisocial swordsman Yang Qing who assists (reluctantly) Yu Ying (Chang Pei Pei) and her wounded father (Ching Miao) in their battle with Jiao Lei and the Green Dragon Clan (Yang Chi-ching).

There are moments when the film looks like it’s going to break free of its formula. Yang Qing is more dislikable than any Chang hero since Silver Roc in Golden Swallow; at times, he’s downright evil. But by the time the credits roll, his harsh corners have been softened by a tale of childhood woe and the movie’s edge has dissipated.

What’s left is a standard Chang film that’s never bad but also never memorable. But, hey, when you make films non-stop, not every one of them is going to stand out.

The Flying Dagger
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: June 18, 1969

Have Sword, Will Travel

Gimmicks have a way of overwhelming the films they are supposed to enhance. Filmmakers get so enamored with new technology that they forget to use it in service of the story and instead use it everywhere they can.

While Have Sword, Will Travel certainly wasn’t Chang Cheh’s first film to feature slow motion, he certainly acted like it was, throwing in slow-mo shots at any opportunity. The hero jumps? Slow-mo. The hero falls backwards? Slow-mo. Blood spurts? Slow-mo.

And that’s a shame, because the entire film builds towards a fantastic slow-mo sequence that would have been a knock-out punch had in not been preceded by endless scenes of pointless slow-mo.

Chang’s overuse of his gimmick undercuts the climax of the film’s love triangle. Heroes and sweethearts Siang Jin (Ti Lung) and Yun Piao Piao (Li Ching) must take charge of the security of a vital currency shipment after the formerly fearsome Lord In (Ching Miao) is taken ill and loses his powers.

On their way to the assignment they meet itinerant swordsman Lo Yi (David Chiang), whose speed with his sword and fondness for Piao Piao raises Siang’s hackles and warms Piao Piao’s heart.

Despite regular evidence to the contrary, Siang is convinced that Lo is working for the Flying Tigers, a gang of bandits trying to steal the cash. Despite Siang’s distrust, Lo joins the caravan when he finds out about Lord In’s illness.

When the Flying Tigers spring their ambush, Siang is separated from Lo and Piau Piau. As Lo debates between saving the doubting swordsman or taking Piau Piau for himself, he foresees his own death, followed by a vision Siang and Piau Piau riding of happily into marriage.

Shot in slow-motion, Lo’s premonition encapsulates the moral crux at the heart of most Chang Cheh films — when presented with a choice between happiness and honor, Chang’s heroes always choose honor. If Chang had chosen to make this the film’s only slow-mo scene, it would have stood out as a powerful statement. Instead, it’s almost swamped by Chang’s overuse of the gimmick.

Have Sword, Will Travel
Dir: Chang Cheh
Released: December 25, 1969