Clan of the White Lotus

AKA Fist (or Fists) of the White Lotus
Hong Kong premiere: January 1, 1980
Director: Lo Lieh
Stars: Gordon Liu, Lo Lieh, Kara Hui, Lam Fai-Wong, Johnny Wang, Lee King-Chu, Yeung Ching-Ching, Hsiao Ho, San Sin, Cheng Miu, Wilson Tong
Story Overview: The evil Pai Mei, destroyer of the Shaolin Temple, has been killed by insurgents Wu Ah Biao and Hung Wei-Ting. But his brother, the invincible chief of the White Lotus Clan, is out for revenge. After Ah Biao is killed, his wife Mei-Hsiao and Wei-Ting escape to plot their own revenge, but Wei-Ting will need a lot of new skills to stand up to the White Lotus.
My Nutshell Review: Between this movie and Executioners from Shaolin, Lo Lieh, the greatest of the Shaw’s villains, created his most memorable character(s). That, some amazing chemistry between Gordon Liu and Kara Hui (a wonderful sparring dance in particular), excellent, varied and unique choreography from Liu Chia-Liang (you’ve never seen anyone fight the way Lo Lieh does in this), and a solid comedic turn from Lam Fai-Wong, combine to make this fundamentally silly picture one of the studio’s most fun and watchable.
My Flickchart Score: 94% (What’s This?)
Watch it free on Amazon Prime here.

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In-Depth Synopsis

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NOTE: In talking about this movie, we have to at least mention Liu Chia-Liang’s 1977 Executioners From Shaolin. This is sort of a sequel to it, and sort of a remake of it at the same time, much like The Evil Dead II or Desperado. But it would slow us down too much to discuss all the places where the two films coincide, and the more where they conflict, in the body of the synopsis, so I’m going to reserve that discussion for the final section. For purposes of the synopsis, the older film doesn’t exist, okay?—Audrey

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Action opening! We see Hung Wei-Ting (Gordon Liu) and Wu Ah Biao (Lee King-Chu) running through the burning remains of the Shaolin Temple to face Pai Mei (Wilson Tong). He is virtually invincible; he has only one weak spot (his “vital point”), but this is not anchored in his body. He can move it from his testicles to his eyes. If you attack one, he shifts it to the other. Our heroes defeat him by tearing both his eyes and his testicles out simultaneously in a pretty good fight as the credits play, though the fight would be better without all the freeze-frames.

Cut to a palace, where we see Governor Kao Ting-Chun (Johnny Wang) receiving a decree from the Emperor: Hung Wei-Ting and Wu Ah Biao are to be pardoned due to a public petition. They’ll be released from prison and have consfiscated property returned to them. Furthermore, the ban on the Shaolin has been lifted, there’s a blanket pardon for everyone who lived/worked within the temple, and the temple itself is to be rebuilt. Kao is clearly angry about this. The decree is publicly posted, and Wei-Ting sees that Ah Biao and the others are to be released, and rushes off to spread the news. Why isn’t Wei-Ting in prison himself, and since he isn’t, why did the emperor just order his release? Who knows? I blame the translation.

Meanwhile, Kao arrives at what must be the most-used location in all of Shaw Brothers, a temple or palace set at the top of a hill with a seemingly endless stair running up to it. In this film, it is Lotus Mountain, the temple and headquarters of the Lotus Clan. Kao enters to the welcome of the entire staff, but ignores them, asking only to see his uncle. This turns out to be the White Lotus himself, priest and leader of the clan, whose name might possibly be Pai Mak (Lo Lieh), but to keep things simple we’re gonna call him the White Lotus here. Kao informs his uncle that he’s in trouble and needs help, and tells him the news. If the Shaolin have a chance to build up their strength, they will certainly come for revenge against both men. The White Lotus agrees.

Cut to a simple family dwelling, where we see Wu Siu-Ching (Yeung Ching-Ching) practicing, doing a very fetching sword dance in the garden. Fans of the platform fighting game Soul Calibur II will recognize this as the same dance Xianghua (my own favorite fighter) does in her demo mode in that game. I love how blissfully unconcerned the chickens in the yard are with her antics. An apparently pregnant Mei-Hsiao (Kara Hui) watches while doing needlepoint inside the house. Wei-Ting rushes in to share the news with Siu-Ching, his own fiancee, and Mei, Ah Biao’s wife. The three set out to meet the returning prisoners.

 We see these prisoners walking along together and learn that Ah Biao is suffering from a leg injury of some kind. He is being carried, and once set down he moves with a walking stick. While they rest, he says that the rest should go on ahead to the village, and he’ll walk on alone to his home. He worries (accurately, as it turns out) that the governor will want revenge against the killers of Pai Mei, and there’s no reason for the other men to face his wrath since they weren’t involved. Once he’s recovered, he will help them destroy the Lotus Clan, but until then he’s just a danger to them. The men leave just as Ah Biao’s family arrive on the scene, Mei being helped along by Siu-Ching. Tearful greetings take place, and we see that Ah Biao bears the marks of torture, and that his right arm is also badly injured.

Now we return to the men he split off from, and it turns out that he was just in time, as they are set upon and slaughtered by Lotus Clan fighters. Let me just say that in a movie full of truly artistic action sequences, this one stands out as being very ordinary and boring. The bodies are searched, and it is discovered that Wu Ah Biao is not among them.

The family is sitting at dinner, catching up. References are made to the coming birth of the child, and the pending marriage of Wei-Ting and Siu-Ching. But then, fiery torches at the gates! A big fight breaks out in the garden between the two men and the invaders (identified by Ah Biao as “killers from court”), while the two women try to put out fires that have been started by torches being thrown into the house. It’s a lot of fun watching Ah Biao hop around whacking people with his cane. But they are too outnumbered, and soon both men are surrounded, plus which several of the invaders have now gotten into the house. Here we get to watch Kara Hui and Yeung Ching-Ching show off, fighting bravely against the Lotus, but Mei is clearly weak from her pregnancy and can’t sustain any attack for long.


 Just when all seems lost for the good guys, their remaining friends show up and counter-attack the Lotus Clan. Now all seems lost for the bad guys...but then the White Lotus shows up. Wei-Ting asks why he wants to hurt them, since the Shaolin have no feud with the Lotus Clan. This seems, incidentally, not to be the case, but we’ll discuss that later. The White Lotus explains that they have killed his brother, Pai Mei, and he wants revenge. Also they find out that he’s the uncle of Governor Kao, which apparently they didn’t know before. The White Lotus first fights Wei-Ting one-on-one, and even though he fights with a sword against an unarmed opponent, Wei-Ting is handily beaten, with the White Lotus finally just grabbing the sword out of his hand. He tosses it away, scornfully saying that he can defeat them all without any weapon, and so all the men attack. He does indeed kick all their asses. Wei-Ting and Ah Biao step back from the fight for a moment, and in that moment the White Lotus strikes each of the other men with a single blow to the abdomen, then tells them to run away while they can. They try, and he counts their steps on his oddly long and knobby fingers; after seven paces, each man falls down dead. This is his Deadly Palm, though we won’t learn the name ‘til much later in the film.

Now Wei-Ting and Ah Biao try to attack using the same Tiger/Crane technique that defeated Pai Mei, but not only can they not beat him, they can’t even make him stop laughing. Ah Biao shouts, “I’ll hold him off! Save the women!” and jumps back into the fray. The White Lotus orders his men to kill everyone, and Wei-Ting is now trying to hold off a small army at the door of the house, alone, but soon the women rush to his aid. Meanwhile, we learn another power the White Lotus possesses: he can make himself weightless (!), so that when anyone throws a punch at him he simply floats back, carried on the air displaced by the attack. Ah Biao is literally unable to lay a finger on him. The White Lotus lands an attack where he grabs him by the ribs with one hand and throws him through the air. Mei tries to help him, and a fatal blow aimed at her is deflected only by Ah Biao placing himself in its path, but Mei is knocked unconscious. Wei-Ting catches her as she falls, and Siu-Ching places herself between the two and the invaders, telling Wei-Ting to get Mei to safety while she holds them off. Reluctantly Wei-Ting does so as she fights the whole army by herself at the door. But the White Lotus realizes there must be a passage of some sort leading from the house and intervenes, driving her back inside. She dies there after a stab from her sword fails to pierce his throat (so it looks like he also shares Pai Mei’s invincibility!), and he orders his men to tear the place apart until they find how Wei-Ting and Mei escaped.

The next day, Wei-Ting and Mei hide in the forest, trying to recover from their injuries. Wei-Ting wants to go back and see if Siu-Ching survived, but Mei is sure she’s dead. She argues that they must find a safe place to hide. She has a cousin in a nearby town who will shelter them, and they set out. We also see the White Lotus, Kao, and several of their men having a nice celebratory dinner. Kao thanks his uncle for contributing to what he is sure is a victory, but he is worried that Hung Wei-Ting escaped. The White Lotus says that alone he is no threat, and all the others are dead. He might come for revenge, but if he does the White Lotus will kill him then, and Kao should just focus on killing the rest of the Shaolin.

Now we visit the site of the temple, where the work of rebuilding has just begun. Many men are laboring, and more men are arriving to volunteer, as an ancient priest (To Wing-Leung) collects for the project just outside the work zone. A crowd of men approach, carrying large baskets, and saying they wish to help. But once inside the work zone they reveal that the baskets are loaded with weapons, and they kill the workers as two men who stayed behind kill the priest and his assistant, after showing the Lotus Clan insignia they wear under their clothes. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that one of the killers is played by Fung Hak-On, but I can’t find him credited anywhere. I mention this just to have an excuse to create an actor page for him.

We see Wei-Ting and Mei arrive at the shop where her cousin works, a shop that makes paper dummies. This cousin turns out to be played by Lam Fai-Wong, whose head is covered with scar tissue that makes his hair grow only spottily. It’s a weird visual identifier, but the Shaws often did things like that. This character seems to have several names, but we’re gonna just pick one and call him Nai-Cheng. She introduces Wei-Ting and explains what has happened, and he lets them live with him behind the shop, and also gets Wei-Ting a job there. We see him at work, trying to weave reeds into the framework for the paper dummies and having to learn to be gentle with them so they don’t break; it’s the first step he’ll take towards being able to beat the White Lotus, though we don’t know it yet (and neither does he).

Later, Wei-Ting practices his kung-fu, having decided that mixing his own tiger style with Ah Biao’s crane style will yield a Tiger/Crane hybrid boxing style that will enable him to defeat the White Lotus. Mei, working on her embroidery, watches him with dismay. We have a brief montage of him working and practicing, mixed with images of Mei apparently getting very near her due date, ending with him and Nai-Cheng having a meal together. “I need a favor,” Wei-Ting says. “I want you to coach me on Ah Biao’s crane boxing.” Nai-Cheng insists that he can’t, that it was too long ago and he doesn’t remember it. But what Wei-Ting really needs is to teach the style to someone else, to master what he remembers of his instruction by Ah Biao. I totally get this. Years ago, when I was studying physics, I used to try to break down and analogize the concepts I was learning to the point that I could explain them to my young adopted brothers, then only eight or so. I figured if I could do that, I would have proven to myself that I had mastered those concepts. It’s been said that the best way to learn is by teaching, and that’s what Wei-Ting needs from Nai-Cheng.

Of course, another purpose Wei-Ting has here is to up Nai-Cheng’s skills to the point that they can partner in the attack on the White Lotus (as he and Ah Biao did in defeating Pai Mei, though that has already failed against the White Lotus), and the following scenes show that this will just never work. Nai-Cheng is lazy, clumsy, and incapable of taking his instruction seriously. We have a short sequence of Lam Fai-Wong pulling out all the tricks in his comedy bag, including some pretty funny and surprisingly athletic business with a chair, as Mei gets increasingly annoyed. Finally she tells him the truth: his kung-fu is getting better and better, but he isn’t and can never be the match of the White Lotus using Tiger/Crane. But he says that he must try regardless, for Ah Biao and Siu-Ching and everyone else they’ve lost. So he sets off for Lotus Mountain.

He has to beat up a few grey-clad palace guards to get in (one of whom is played by Ho Kei-Chong) and then, once inside, he has to beat up some yellow-clad guards as well. But Kao shows up and they say mean things to each other before beginning a largely one-on-one duel. Gordon Liu vs. Johnny Wang is one of the more storied matchups in the Shaw Brothers catalog, and this one doesn’t disappoint (it’s nice that director Lo and choreographer Liu put so much effort into a side-show), but Wei-Ting is clearly the better fighter. All of this is enough to disturb the White Lotus in the middle of bathtime, but he takes the time to get dressed before coming down to deal with the interloper himself.

By this time the overmatched Kao has brought the temple guards back into the fray, and Wei-Ting is handling them all neatly, but once the White Lotus arrives all other activities cease. He scolds Wei-Ting for disturbing him on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, the one day each year that he spends relaxing and meditating. Wei-Ting is, of course, unmoved by this and charges to the attack. The White Lotus notes that he is attempting to add Crane style to his normal Tiger style, but ominously, says that he hasn’t perfected it yet. Then the fight gets started in earnest, and it’s among the best things Lo Lieh has ever done. He spends most of the fight with his hands clasped behind his back, not even needing to use his arms to fight off his attacker. He simply leans, shifts his weight, changes aspect slightly and all of Wei-Ting’s punches and kicks just barely miss him. Smooth, seemingly effortless, beautiful to watch. Even when Wei-Ting’s on-target, the White Lotus’ weightlessness lets him simply float out of reach. After a moment, he announces “This isn’t fun anymore,” begins using his hands at last, and quickly wipes Wei-Ting out. “You must be out of your mind to fight me, with your childish Tiger/Crane skill,” he says. “You have no choice but to join your friend Ah Biao in hell for more lessons.” The defeated Wei-Ting barely manages to escape with his life.

The White Lotus sends a couple of men (Ng Git-Keung and, I believe, Lin Ke-Ming) to follow Wei-Ting, in hopes of finding his and his friends’ hideout. Wei-Ting cleverly eludes them by entering a restaurant and masquerading as a waiter, then slipping away while they search the place. He returns home to find Nai-Cheng in some anxiety; Mei has gone into labor. The baby’s first cries are heard as he shuts the gate. After a brief discussion with the midwife, who assumes Wei-Ting is the father, we go inside to see Mei, not a bit the worse for wear after her experience. She scolds Wei-Ting for being away while she was giving birth, and when Nai-Cheng spills the beans about where he was, she’s angry. He’s lucky to be alive and unhurt. He says that the fact that he survived proves that his kung fu is good, but he doesn’t understand why he can’t get close to the White Lotus. She tells him again that his kung fu isn’t good enough, but she will help him with his training once she’s regained her strength.

The passage of some months is marked by a close-up of the infant fading into the close-up of a significantly larger and older child, and Mei cradles the boy while Wei-Ting continues to practice by torturing Nai-Cheng. Now he has him hanging by a rope from a tree, swinging back and forth while Wei-Ting chases him and tries to get in a good blow. The force of Wei-Ting’s blows generates a breeze that causes the candles to gutter. Mei notices that the breeze also knocks over the paper dummies warehoused nearby, and remembers how the White Lotus similarly floated away from her husband’s attacks. She tells Wei-Ting that he’ll never succeed if he just practices speed, because the White Lotus’ technique is designed to defeat it. She uses a dummy to illustrate this. Wei-Ting can never hit it; the harder he attacks, the faster it is blown backward by the force of his blows, always staying just out of reach. Then Mei steps up and effortlessly punches holes in it, finally tearing its arms clean off. Wei-Ting argues that her style is no good; it’s too gentle, not forceful enough. But she shows that her style (Wing Chun, maybe? Someone more knowledgeable tell me in the comments) approaches softly but focuses all power on the actual contact with the target, not becoming forceful until the last second. Hers is a specifically feminine style, and he asks her to teach it to him. She agrees, but first he must become like a woman, including doing embroidery and caring for the baby. Once he’s mastered all that, she will teach him. The handling of this idea, by the way, is pretty surprising for a movie made in 1979, but more about that in the next section.

We have a montage of Wei-Ting doing all this stuff, trying to thread a needle, carrying the baby on his back while he works, trying to calm its crying, trying to do needlepoint without just punching the needle roughly through the cloth. As with his first scene trying to bend the reeds in such a way that they don’t break, he is learning to be gentle and mindful of what he’s doing. Finally, Mei begins his training. She tries to show him her technique, but must first remake everything about the way he moves. His muscles are tight, and he must relax. His movements are swift and brutal, they must be languid and smooth. He makes three moves when he should only make one. His center of balance is far too high, which she demonstrates by bending over backwards until her arms, outstretched above her head, nearly reach the ground behind her. When he tries it, he simply topples over. At first he does everything wrong, but as he continues to ape her movements he becomes more and more fluid.

After some unspecified period, we see him moving as well as she does, and she tells him to now combine what he’s learned with his Tiger/Crane. He does well until he practices on Nai-Cheng, where we see that he still unleashes his power too early. Mei tells Nai-Cheng to stand aside and steps in herself, and we have the finest scene in the movie and one of the most beautiful sequences the studio ever produced. The two engage in some slow-motion sparring that is really just a perfectly-choreographed, perfectly-realized dance, fantastically balanced and graceful. Unfortunately it is all-too-short, as Wei-Ting soon realizes that it requires him to touch her in ways that aren’t appropriate for an unmarried couple(!). Mei upbraids him for this, saying that he’s her only chance at revenge and he must fight her as if she were the White Lotus, and I’m with her. I wish they had just decided to go ahead and marry at this point if it would have meant more of the dancing, but she finally agrees with him. But Nai-Cheng has a solution: just beat up the paper dummies! We find that he is now able to hit them, as Mei looks on approvingly. He trashes so many dummies that Nai-Cheng’s boss (Cheng Miu) begins to wonder what’s happened to his stock. He’s got a big order going out in just three days! Why don’t they have more dummies ready? Nai-Cheng claims that the cats have destroyed a lot of the stock, but he’s working hard on a new batch.

Now there’s a sequence that I don’t fully understand, but what I think happens is that Nai-Cheng sends Wei-Ting on an errand just so one of the workers can make a set of cheaper, easier dummies specifically for him to tear up while everyone else finishes the big order. This is not explicit, though, and the dummies look just the same to me. Anyway, Wei-Ting makes quick work of them (possibly because they’re defective in some way?), and this leads him to decide he’s ready for a re-match with the White Lotus. He tries to tell Nai-Cheng where he’s going, but his friend is sleeping and doesn’t want a conversation, so he just sets out for Lotus Mountain.

We see Nai-Cheng waking up the next morning, realizing that Wei-Ting isn’t there and where he must have gone, and setting off after him. Somehow he catches up, even though Wei-Ting had a several hour head start, and begs him not to go. It’s too soon; he isn’t strong enough yet. He needs more practice. But Wei-Ting has decided, thanks Nai-Cheng for caring, asks him to looks after the family, and says he’ll be back soon. He goes on, and after some hesitation, Nai-Cheng again follows.

He reaches the temple and this time avoids the small army of guards, going directly to the White Lotus’ chamber. He rushes to attack, but is ambushed by two swordsmen who act as the White Lotus’ bodyguards, not that he needs bodyguards, really. I suppose it’s just so he doesn’t have to be bothered (and in fact, for several minutes, he doesn’t even acknowledge Wei-Ting’s presence). The two swordsmen (played by San Sin and the soon-to-be-great Hsiao Ho) turn out to be much more dangerous than the troop of guards Wei-Ting fought the last time, and even to be more dangerous than Kao. It’s not easy for an unarmed man to fight off two swordsmen, but Wei-Ting manages in fine fashion. Finally he pulls off a really great move: the two stab at him simultaneously, and he turns sideways so that their swords pass through the front and back of his tunic without cutting him. Then he takes the weapons out of their hands. For a moment roles are reversed, as he attacks two unarmed opponents with a sword in each hand, before throwing the swords at the White Lotus, who ducks just in time as the swords bury themselves in the wall behind him. So now he finally has to pay attention.

He starts by pretty handily slapping Wei-Ting around, attempting his Deadly Palm, which Wei-Ting blocks by kicking his shoe up to prevent the palm making contact with his chest. Now, for the first time, he seems to have succeeded in annoying the White Lotus, who is unused to anything he does failing. For a moment the fight is more even, with Wei-Ting at one point even using the White Lotus’ weightlessness against him, pushing him away to give himself time to recover from a fall. Now he breaks out his new style, and is able to get in close enough to grab the White Lotus’ eyelids and pull them wide open. The White Lotus looks at his new stance and asks, “What’s wrong with you?” but Wei-Ting simply replies, “You’ll soon see,” and comes prancing in on a new attack. He manages to tear his enemy’s clothes, causing the White Lotus to say, “You’ve done well. You’ve got the right technique, but unfortunately my vital spot is well-hidden. Try and find it!”

Now the White Lotus simply keeps moving, making no attack, allowing Wei-Ting to try again and again to hurt him. In the process his outfit gets ruined, and while no damage is done, he realizes that Wei-Ting has become dangerous enough to be taken seriously. “Your technique is still not strong enough for a master. I guess I’d better show you. Watch me then!” and he simply demolishes Wei-Ting, finally hitting him with his 100-Pace-Palm. This, of course, is the same as the attack that killed Wei-Ting’s friends at the beginning of the film, except the victim dies after 100 steps instead of seven. The White Lotus gives him this extra time so that he won’t die on the spot and soil his sanctuary. Wei-Ting, blood pouring from every (visible) orifice, runs outside, falls, and rolls down the steps to the bottom. But of course this saves his life, since he doesn’t actually take 100 steps before losing consciousness. Nai-Cheng, waiting below, puts him on his back and carries him home.

Back in their little shack, Mei and Nai-Cheng sit by Wei-Ting’s bed, where he lies unconscious with a large, ugly hand-print on his chest. Mei wonders what they can do to save him, and Nai-Cheng says they must get a doctor, but they have no money. So he goes to his boss (the one played by Cheng Miu) and asks for a salary advance. The boss points out that he already owes money against his salary, and Nai-Cheng says that Wei-Ting is badly hurt and will die without a doctor. When the boss says that Wei-Ting is always fighting and deserves what he gets, Nai-Cheng tells him that it’s different this time, because he was injured fighting for revenge against Chief White Lotus. Suddenly the boss is interested. He tells Nai-Cheng to return home, and he’ll join him soon.

The boss arrives at the shack and examines Wei-Ting. He determines the nature of the injury and says if he’d walked another 19 steps he’d be dead now (amazing how precise he can be!). He performs acupuncture on Wei-Ting, and sets him on the road to recovery. They thank him, and he says it’s his duty. He’s a revolutionist, fighting the Qing. That’s why he so often travels, and in fact he’s leaving the next day. He tells them to remove the needles in three hours, give Wei-Ting the medicine he’s brought, and let him rest. He’ll heal soon.

Cut to the next day, and the boss stops by to look in on Wei-Ting before he leaves town. Wei-Ting is much better, sipping some broth and able to sit up. He thanks the boss for saving his life, and the boss says he ought to thank Nai-Cheng instead for carrying him back. He leaves his acupuncture manual with Wei-Ting, saying he might find it useful. Wei-Ting reads through the book and realizes that it might help him find the White Lotus’ vital spot. There’s a brief aside here, where we see Kao and the White Lotus discussing the fact that he must be dead and that they can relax, but mostly we follow Wei-Ting as he learns the knowledge contained in the manual, once again using Nai-Cheng as a practice dummy. Mei, bringing their dinner, finds them hard at work and asks what they’re doing. Wei-Ting explains that acupuncture is a cure, but also a deadly weapon, and asks Mei to get him some embroidery needles while she’s out the next day (to which, of course, Nai-Cheng reacts with horror). But the next day is the Dragon Boat Festival, and Wei-Ting has a plan.

So, he returns to Lotus Mountain for the third time, to face the White Lotus for the fourth time. Along the way he meets and kills Kao in a throwaway scene; Johnny Wang deserved a better death than this, but we’re in a hurry to get to the main event. Wei-Ting arrives at the temple, and this time decides to sneak in. He crawls into the culvert that the White Lotus’ bathwater is pouring out of (why does he always want to disturb the poor man’s bathtime?) and launches a surprise attack (if you ever wanted to see Lo Lieh’s cock, now’s your chance). We have a short scuffle wherein the White Lotus holds Wei-Ting off while attempting to get dressed, and finally his swordsmen attack to give him breathing room. Wei-Ting again defeats them, this time killing them in the battle. Interestingly, Gordon Liu uses a chain whip in this fight. It looks very like his signature weapon, the three-section staff that he invented as San Te in 36th Chamber of Shaolin, only smaller and made entirely of steel, with sharp points at the end.

Now it’s down to just the two of them, and early on this fight has a different feel. Wei-Ting seems to be fighting on a more equal footing; in fact, early in the fight he rips out the White Lotus’ bushy white eyebrows! We find out that Wei-Ting has hidden dozens of needles in his long braid, and using the languid, graceful movements he learned from Mei he begins poking them into the White Lotus’ chi centers, looking for his vital point. At various times he makes him hiccup, laugh, cry, and cough as he goes. He eventually robs the White Lotus of the use of his arms, then of his legs, and then fills his head and torso with needles hitting every chi center until he runs out of needles. Wei-Ting thinks he’s won, but by a supreme effort the White Lotus rises to his feet, and by focusing his chi causes all the needles to burst out of his body. Wei-Ting has missed his vital point! He attacks Wei-Ting and now the battle seems to be going against our hero, but before the White Lotus can finish him, he grabs the hairpin from the White Lotus’ own wig and attacks the only target he hasn’t gotten to yet: the palms of his hands. And that does it! No wonder the White Lotus likes to fight with his hands behind his back. Wei-Ting at first thinks he’s pretending, but soon the White Lotus does actually drop dead, and Wei-Ting runs jumping with excitement, shouting “I did it!” ANOTHER SHAW PRODUCTION

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THE EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN PROBLEM:

Sequel or remake? I think the opening sequence basically rules out sequel; they would have simply re-used the footage of Pai Mei’s death from the first film. Instead they changed it completely. A different actor plays Pai Mei (I can think of no reason Lo Lieh couldn’t have played both parts, with the White Lotus being Pai Mei’s twin rather than simply a brother). The final battle takes place at the Shaolin Temple rather than the set that this movie calls Lotus Mountain. Pai Mei is killed by two men, one using Tiger style and the other using Crane style, rather than one man using a hybrid of the two styles. Plus, Pai Mei isn’t the only person who dies in both films. Johnny Wang’s character is killed by Chen Kuan-Tai’s Hung Hsi-Kuan in the first movie, as well. Plus, the character Gordon Liu is playing here, Hung Wei-Ting, is the same character played by Wong Yu earlier. So it can’t really be a sequel. It makes better sense to call it a remake, and the Shaws certainly had a history of remaking their own films after very short periods, but there are still problems with that. First, typically when they did that, they would set the sequel in a different era (as with The Duel and The Flag Of Iron), but this one clearly takes place at the same time, right after the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by the Qing. Also, if this is a remake, why include the opening sequence at all? Why not simply have Lo Lieh once again playing Pai Mei? It’s pointless to kill him off at the beginning if the whole point is to have him for the whole film. Have them kill someone else instead, someone whose death raises the ire of Pai Mei and Governor Kao. Hell, have it be Kao, maybe. Give Johnny Wang a decent death that means something in context, instead of being an afterthought.

Here’s what I think: the Shaws realized they had something special with the Pai Mei character (more below), and wanted another film with him. Plus, in between these two films being made, Gordon Liu (who had died early in Executioners) had been in 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Heroes of the East and had become perhaps the studio’s biggest star, so they wanted him back, too. And of course, since they never allowed re-releases of their films, they could hope that people had forgotten certain plot elements in the intervening years. The inconsistencies between the two films are simply a relic of the era in which they were made. It wasn’t like folks could watch Executioners on VHS before going to the theater to see White Lotus, so they just threw something together and counted on the style of Liu Chia-Liang, the charisma of their leads, and the hazy memories of their audience to make it work. And weirdly, it does. I actually prefer this one to the original. In any event, I find that it’s easier just to pretend that these two films are completely unrelated, despite having a few characters and plot devices in common. Trying to weave them together in my head doesn’t seem to be worth the effort.

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: The White Lotus/Pai Mei himself. For a moment, let’s put aside the discrepancy between the two films and pretend he’s the same guy in both, which isn’t much of a stretch no matter how many times he’s died. Lo Lieh (who directed this and played the character in both films), Liu Chia-Liang (who directed the first film and did the choreography for both), and I Kuang (who wrote the first) really created a masterpiece in this character. His overwhelming confidence, the fact that the laughter and insults never stop, even when he’s fighting, and that broad smile, along with the trademark white hair, beard, and eyebrows and his unique fighting style, make him the most distinctive character in the Shaw canon. And beyond, really; kung-fu geekdom in this country (the U.S., for any international readers) is among the most obscure and insular fandom communities around, and important, landmark films for us are virtually unknown even to most serious film fans. Very few Shaw Brothers characters have transcended the genre to become even small players in the larger pop culture landscape. Maybe Gordon Liu’s San Te, possibly Jimmy Wang Yu’s One-Armed Swordsman, but above them all is Pai Mei. There’s a reason he’s the guy Quentin Tarantino chose to resurrect for his Kill Bill movies. He’s bigger than these two movies, to some extent bigger than the genre itself. He’s one of the truly classic villains in all of cinema: scary, arrogant, dangerous, flawlessly skilled, and unfailingly funny; a charming, amoral killer. I wish Kevin Feige (of Marvel Studios) would watch these movies and see what a proper villain ought to be.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: This isn’t even a problem with the film itself, really, but I wish I had access to a Cantonese version with English subs. I like to watch both that version and an English dubbed version to compare when I’m doing one of these write-ups, but if I’m only gonna have one I want the original language. I get a better feel for what the characters are actually saying in those, and so with this one I feel like there are things I don’t understand that would make sense if the English version wasn’t the only one available (examples below).

SHAWISMS: We could definitely talk about the Shaw Brother’s Patented Abrupt Ending here, since there are no more than ten seconds between the White Lotus’ death and the final freeze-frame of Wei-Ting jumping for joy. The extended and unusual training montage is very much a Shawism as well, plus Wei-Ting not being able to defeat the White Lotus until the fourth time he faces him (even Rocky isn’t that patient, but Shaw Brothers makes their heroes work harder than Stallone does). But I do want to take a moment to introduce an unsung hero of the studio’s film, dubbed by fans the Flying Carpet. This is a prop rug that was reused so constantly in the movies that it became a bit of a character its own self. It appears here in the very first scene after the opening credits, when Governor Kao receives the Emperor’s messenger. Watch him when he kneels; that’s the Flying Carpet he’s kneeling on. Now that you know what it looks like, keep an eye out for it in other Shaw Brothers productions. It’s an easter egg from before that concept was created.

NITPICKING: The Lotus Clan insignia worn by the assassins who kill the men rebuilding the temple is just sad. A piece of paper with a drawing of a lotus, pinned onto the front of their clothes? With all the needlepoint being done in this movie, couldn’t someone have done some decent badges for those guys? It’s just not very intimidating.

!?! !?! !?!

Kara Hui never does get very pregnant in this, does she? She’s at the “barely showing” phase for half the film, then suddenly she’s at the “new baby” phase. I wish real-life pregnancies went so smoothly.

!?! !?! !?!

When Wei-Ting kills Kao, he asks just before he dies “Where’s Priest White Lotus?” But he already knows that. He was on his way there! I have to assume that this is just the dub, and that on set Gordon Liu said something that made more sense (perhaps something along the lines of “That’s for Siu-Ching!” or “Ming Forever!”), but again, the absence of a Cantonese dub with a direct English translation is the biggest problem with this film. I hope it gets a proper U.S. DVD release soon.

!?! !?! !?!

As good as Wei-Ting’s fight against the two swordsmen is, there are a couple of moments where their blades definitely just...stop on contact with his skin. An inexplicable lapse on the part of Liu Chia-Liang.

!?! !?! !?!

Speaking of the swordsmen, why are they played by different actors during the final battle? Were Hsiao Ho and San Sin busy on another film that day? Or are these two different characters? Wei-Ting didn’t kill them the last time they faced him, so if they’re new guys the White Lotus must have just hired them. That seems precipitous, doesn’t it? But possible, of course. Still, I wish they’d just stuck with the same two guys.

!?! !?! !?!

The politics of this one are a little hard to work out. I mean, they seem obvious on their face. It appears that the Lotus Clan are in league with the Qing, and Ah Biao, Wei-Ting, and the Shaolin in general are pro-Ming (which would certainly fit with how the Shaolin are usually portrayed). Also, it appears that Pai Mei was with the Lotus. Kao, whether an actual member of the Lotus Clan or not, is definitely pro-Qing, since he is the governor and wouldn’t be allowed to hold that position if he opposed them, so even if our heroes don’t know that Kao is the nephew of Pai Mei and the White Lotus, they must know he’s their enemy. So why are Ah Biao and Wei-Ting surprised when the White Lotus shows up at their house to kill them? They say the Shaolin and White Lotus have no grievance, which is clearly untrue if one is supporting the current government and the other is leading a violent insurgency. That’s like Robert E. Lee telling Abraham Lincoln that they have no grievance. It makes no sense. Plus, only moments earlier Ah Biao has declared his intention to help “destroy the Lotus Clan” once he’s healed from his injuries, so even if he IS surprised, he’s being hypocritical here. And later, when Wei-Ting meets Kao at Lotus Mountain, he asks why Kao is trying to wipe out the Shaolin. I mean, isn’t it obvious? Would you ask an exterminator why he’s killing termites? Is this something else we have to put down to bad dubbing?

THOUGHTS:

Watch the way Lo Lieh moves in his fight scenes. Nobody had ever moved like that before. Every move he makes speaks volumes. He’s just toying with the people he’s fighting, giving them a chance to hurt him before he moves in for the kill, knowing they won’t be able to take advantage of it. As I mentioned in the synopsis, it’s amazing how often he doesn’t even use his hands, just keeps them clasped behind his back, and completely controls fights by slightly shifting his ground, untouchable, knocking bewildered opponents around with hip checks and shoulders, until he gets bored and destroys them in seconds. And watch the scene where Gordon Liu and Kara Hui spar with each other, how graceful their movements are. I’ve already written about how gorgeous that scene is above, but it’s worth mentioning again. They deserve a lot of credit for that, of course, but the fight choreography Liu Chia-Liang put together for this film is second to none. He has films that are more highly-regarded, but this one is unique for how eloquently the characters’ movements tell a story of their own.

Still, the stars deserve credit. As good as the work done by Liu and I Kuang in the creation of The White Lotus/Pai Mei was, nobody else could have played him like Lo Lieh does. That scowl, and then that broad grin, the insouciance of his movements, and those hot, hard eyes are things that I doubt anyone else could have matched. Gordon Liu is right there with him, though, with his boyishness, his enthusiasm, his willingness to try anything that might help him defeat the villain. His intensity is the perfect counterpoint to Lo’s half-amused/half-bored aloofness.

And there’s some gender politics with Liu that are pretty surprising, as well. Remember, this was made in 1979, and yet when Wei-Ting realizes that being taught by a woman to fight like a woman might help him win, he dives right in. No worry that it will stain his manhood, no embarrassment at doing “woman’s work.” And nobody around him thinks twice about it, either. When he goes to work with the baby on his back, we don’t see anyone snickering at him or throwing insults. The closest we get is a casual remark from Nai-Cheng that he might actually become a woman, which both Wei-Ting and Mei ignore, and Nai-Cheng himself forgets immediately. Compare that to, say, Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master (1978), where Jackie’s character balks at one of the eight “drunken fairies” whose styles he is supposed to ape being a woman. Acting feminine, even alone with his master, is something he flatly refuses to do. It’s kind of amazing that Gordon Liu, only a year or two later, has no hint of this narrow-mindedness. Of course, a proper feminist critique might well posit, “But why do men and women need separate styles at all? And why are sewing and child-rearing woman’s work? And why is the woman’s style softer? And why couldn’t Mei have been the partner Wei-Ting needed to fight the White Lotus?” which are valid questions. I’m not claiming Clan of the White Lotus is a feminist manifesto. But it does feel like its acceptance of a woman as a teacher, and of her style as capable of victories beyond the reach of Wei-Ting’s Tiger/Crane style (which, in case you don’t know, is Hung Gar, the same style Huang Fei-Hong used in hundreds of movies where he’s an untouchable bad-ass), is way ahead of its time and deserves to be celebrated. I bet that a lot of women watching in 1980 really enjoyed that.

On the subject of Kara Hui, go back and watch the scene where the Lotus Clan attacks our heroes in their home again, specifically the bit where the bad guys enter the house and she and Yeung Ching-Ching have to fight them off alone while the boys are busy out in the front yard. Yeung is very good here; her movements are fluid and believable, her balance and her stance are pretty close to perfect. She looks good fighting those guys. But when she has to do something truly acrobatic, like a flip, there’s suddenly a cut where her stuntman steps in for her. Now watch Kara Hui in that same scene. When she does those same moves, the camera never cuts away from her. That’s the difference between a fine performer and a star. Kara Hui didn’t need anyone to step in for her! She could do everything the boys could do, and she was proud of it. She’s a supporting character in this, but it’s an unforgettable physical performance that presages the sort of work she would do once she got to be THE star of a movie.

So with unique choreography and three great stars giving performances that are at or near their personal bests, why isn’t this my favorite Shaw Brothers movie ever? Well, maybe it’s a bit too light-hearted; the movie seems to forget that there are tragedies both historic (the burning of the Shaolin Temple) and personal (the deaths of Ah Biao and Siu-Ching) at its heart. I certainly don’t want the movie to be emotionally draining or depressing, but it does seem that everyone just gets over everything bad that happens, with the exception of a couple of moments where Kara Hui seems to be carrying a certain emotional weight. Johnny Wang doesn’t get to do much, to the point that I’m surprised they bothered to put his character in the film at all. I want more out of him. He’s a favorite. These are not major complaints, of course, but while this isn’t my absolute favorite it’s very high on my list (#10 as I write this, out of more than a hundred films), and in that rarified company small complaints matter. Still, a classic from the studio, and one that appears to be undervalued, given that it’s never had the sort of Special Edition treatment that several others have received, and that the online fan community seems to prefer Executioners from Shaolin by a pretty wide margin (looking at its ratings on IMDb and Letterboxd). I would recommend it to any fan of kung-fu films. Furthermore, if I was asked to pick a first film for someone who was considering maybe getting into the Shaws catalog, I might well pick this one. It’s beautiful, accessible, and entertaining, and ought to appeal to anyone who is into martial arts, or just anyone who likes watching human bodies moving in expressive, unexpected ways. A real delight.

The Sword Stained With Royal Blood

Hong Kong premiere: March 6, 1981
Director: Chang Cheh
Stars: Philip Kwok, Candy Wen, Ching Li, Lung Tien-Hsiang, Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng, Wong Lik, Yu Tai-Ping, Chu Ko, Wong Wa, Chu Tiet-Wo, Chan Shen, Chiu Gwok.
Story Overview: A young hero discovers a treasure map in the tomb of a long-dead master. After studying the techniques contained in the master’s manual he sets out to return the treasure to the master’s wife, but finds her in the clutches of her devious and deadly family, who betrayed the master years ago. Now the hero must use the master’s legacy to avenge him and set his wife and daughter free.
My Nutshell Review: Narratively this sometimes runs off the tracks, and occasionally gets a little bogged down in both expository dialog and flashbacks. But when it’s moving it’s a beautifully-shot, magnificently-choreographed series of duels and brawls that will thrill any fan of kung fu movies.
My Flickchart Score: 90% (What’s This?)
Watch it on Amazon Prime here.

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In-Depth Synopsis

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We open with some narration: “Before the 1911 Revolution, Dongguan Yuan Shung Wun was the first to care about the country’s future and welfare. During the Ming Dynasty, Yuan many times defeated the Qing invaders. Unfortunately, Yuan Shung Wun fell into a trap and was cut into pieces in public by the Ming Emperor. Many soldiers were stranded in Liutung. Shung died a wrongful death. A lot of his generals and followers, out of rage, turned to and served the Qing instead. The ones stationed at Central area were those from Guanliu.” [At this point, we see Yuan executed via “scaling,” or death from a thousand cuts...he is played by Ngai Tim-Choi, and among the crowd of spectators are Wang Han-Chen and Gam Tin-Chue] “Yuan’s family is also wanted by the administration. A loyal servant saved his youngest son, Yuan Cheng-Chih, and sought refuge at Hua Shan.” If anything about that narration bothered or confused you, it’s okay. Literally none of it will ever be mentioned again or play any part in the story whatsoever.

Loyal servant,

hard-working man.

The credits take place over shots of this loyal but nameless servant (Wong Wa), carrying the small boy on his back over a mountain, to a score that sounds like something we’d hear over stock footage of Monument Valley on a 60s cowboy TV show. We finally end at Hua Shan Mansion, where the narration briefly picks back up: “The chief of the Hua Shan School was the best swordsman around.” We see this chief, the Teacher Mu Ren-Qing (Lee Sau-Kei), receiving the servant (who we now learn is mute) and reading the note he carries, imploring him to take in and train the child, which he agrees to do for the father’s sake.

Cut 17 years into the future, where we see the now-adult Yuan Cheng-Chih, played by Philip Kwok. He is playing chess with Muk Shon (Wong Ching-Ho) and beating him handily. The old man, along with Teacher, is about to travel to Xin Xi, where natural disasters have led to widespread starvation among the people. They’re planning a little fundraising to help folks out. Yuan and the servant go to speak to Teacher. He says that he hasn’t left the mansion since Yuan arrived all those years ago, and it’s time for him to visit old friends. Yuan would like to come along, but Teacher tells him that he has nearly mastered the kung fu he’s been learning, and it would be better for him to stay and complete his training. He gives Yuan the school’s manual, which outlines the moral standards students are meant to adhere to. He further explains that it can be difficult to know right from wrong, that good men can do evil things and vice-versa. He says that he has only ever taken in three students: besides Yuan himself, there were Iron Abacus Wang Zhen, and Invincible Fist Gui Xin Shu. The former is very smart, and the latter is simple but good-hearted. We’ll meet one of these guys later. Muk Shon then enters and delivers his parting gift, his chess set.

Remember those rules.

They’ll be important later in the picture.

The servant brings Yuan to see what he’s discovered; a cave with golden snake-shaped darts stuck into the earth at its entrance. Yuan picks these darts up and enters the cave to discover writing carved into the walls: “The treasure and the manual are for the chosen. Enter at your own risk. Hsia Shiue Yi the Golden Snake.” Nearby are a skeleton draped next to a treasure chest and a sword stuck in a stone. Yuan pulls out the sword, which is apparently gold-plated and is wavy and forked like a snake’s tongue, and then approaches the chest.

Incidentally, these are gorgeous props.

I wish they had gotten more use out of them.

He declares his intention to bury the skeleton and begins to dig. With a stick! I’ve buried cats with shovels before, and that’s hard work. Digging a human grave with a stick...this kid must have crazy stamina. Anyway, once he’s moved enough earth to make a grave he finds another chest buried on that spot. He opens it to find three documents.

A persistent problem for American fans of the Shaws:

I sure wish I could read the titles on those documents.

The first reads “Whoever gets this box gets the treasure inside it, but must bury me first.” We’re on it! The second reads, “If you would bury me, please dig deeper into the pit before burying me. That way I can stay deep down in the ground free from worms.” Yuan does this and discovers another, smaller box. Inside this box is another note: “You are a righteous person. Follow my instructions to bury me and you will be highly rewarded. When you open the box, poisonous arrows will shoot out. The map inside the box is a fake and is poisonous. It’s to punish the crooks. The genuine map is in this small iron box.”

The servant makes worried noises outside the cave to warn that danger approaches. Yuan hides the boxes and moves the earth back over the hole, and they hide outside to witness two dangerous-looking men coming near. They see the cave and notice that the brush around it has been burned recently, and speculate that the villain they are searching for (on behalf of “third uncle”) is nearby, and that they should check Hua Shan.

Not-so-loyal servants Liang Yao-Wen (L) and Lam Chi-Tai.

Don’t worry; I expect they’ll get what’s coming to them.

One suggests that they go back to third uncle to get backup, but the other wants to bring in the villain themselves, because he’s hoping that they can recover the treasure map on their own. They enter the cave and we have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen to them. Of course it does: they notice the recently-dug earth, dig it up again and find the first treasure chest. They toss aside the two notes Yuan has already read and open the third: “There is a secret mechanism on the side of the iron box. Use both hands to grasp it and the box will open.” So one of them (Lam Chi-Tai) does open the box and gets killed by the poisoned arrows.

Don’t gloat, dude. You ain’t outta this yet.

The other (Liang Yao-Wen) takes the manual and the map from the box, but they’re stuck together, so he licks his fingers to pull them apart and, obviously, is thereby poisoned.

Told ya.

Yuan and his servant return and retrieve the treasures, thanking the Golden Snake for sparing them.

Can I just pause for a moment to say how impressed I am

with Philip Kwok’s sideburns in this? Those things are AMAZING.

Yuan spends some non-specific amount of time in the cave, studying the manual and practicing with the sword and the darts, while the faithful servant brings him his food. Once he’s mastered the manual he remarks that it seems to be incomplete, but careful examination reveals another page hidden inside the cover, along with the treasure map. It was clearly the Golden Snake’s intention for people to study the manual first, and then seek the treasure. The new page reads “Whoever gets this treasure, go to Shilang at Zhejiang. Find a lady named Wen Yi and give her 100,000 worth of gold.” Yuan says something that the subtitles translate as “sounds exaggerating,” which I repeat here because it tickles me.

“Sounds exaggerating.”

We return to the mansion where Yuan writes a farewell letter to his teacher while his servant examines the weapons. Yuan says that he doesn’t want the treasure, and so will simply deliver the map to this Wen Yi. He is not sure whether he should use the Golden Snake weapons and asks in the letter for Teacher’s advice, and asks the servant to bring any news of the Teacher’s wishes to him at Shilang.

Man, this place looks familiar.

He stops at a tavern along the way. As he eats peacefully upstairs, a young “man” walks in with steps so heavy that he makes the teacups shake. The waiter says that the place is very busy and invites him to share a table with someone else, which makes the young man shove him. Yuan catches him and invites the young man to join him at his table, at which point we see that he is played by Candy Wen and therefore is a woman in disguise. I’ll just go ahead and say that this is Wen Qing-Qing (Candy Wen), though we won’t know that within the film for some time yet. She turns around looking ready for a fight, but apparently it’s love at first sight for her, and she smiles and sits down.

That’s right. She’s all man.

This brings up a problem we’ll have a lot in reviewing Shaw Brothers films, and indeed in Chinese cinema in general. The “woman masquerading as a man” trope is very frequent, and it’s always as obvious to the audience as it is here. Somehow, the characters have a lot of trouble seeing through it, and it is really the major obstacle to a proper suspension of disbelief that I encounter with these films. But anyway, when deciding how to write up this particular plotline, I’ve decided just to refer to this character as Qing-Qing, hoping any readers will understand that until very near the end of the film the cast will refer to her as Brother Qing, and I will use feminine pronouns to refer to her since that will streamline some scenes, allowing me to write “him” and “her” rather than having to constantly retype everyone’s name. I hope that’s clear enough, but if not, well, that’s what the comment section is for.

The two indulge in small talk for a moment before a gang of ruffians charge into the tavern and see her. They demand that she come down. They are from the Longyou School and have been chasing her and the gold she carries for some time. Two of them jump up onto the balcony and she guts them both with a single sword swipe. Their leader (Wan Seung-Lam) says that there’s never been any trouble between Shilang and the Longyou School, and that for the sake of the Wen family...

That’s Wan Seung-Lam in the yellow vest.

Tell me he doesn’t look like a younger, heavier, dopier Johnny Wang.

She cuts him off and demands that he fight if he wants the gold, so he draws daggers and throws them. She deflects them, and Yuan catches them. Then he jumps onto the balcony, sword drawn, and attempts to duel her. She wounds him, and he leaps back to the ground and throws some more daggers that Yuan blocks before they can harm her. Then she jumps down and stabs the ruffian to death. His men carry him out as she returns to the table.

Yuan scolds her for killing the ruffian when the fight was already over, and she tells him that saving her doesn’t give him the right to judge her. But they resume their meal until the ruffians return with an old man played by Chan Shen. This is Master Rong, and he’s a little pissed off. Two of his men again try to storm the balcony, and this time Yuan grabs them and pushes them back to the floor. He explains that he’s done this to save their lives, since Qing-Qing would certainly have killed them. Rong says that this must be why she has gotten so bold lately; she has a tough new boyfriend. Yuan asks if they can’t all sit down and sort out whatever the problem is by talking, but neither Rong nor Qing-Qing is very interested in this. She demands that Yuan leave if he’s scared, while Rong says that once he’s taken care of Qing-Qing maybe they can be friends.

Rong and Qing-Qing argue back and forth, with her getting more taunting by the second and him getting angry enough to strike a support with such force that the whole building shakes. Then we get this exchange:

Damn, dude. I know she’s an annoying brat, but that ain’t right.

Rong demands the gold. He even claims not really to want it for himself, and that he will give it to Sha’s widow (I assume Sha is the name of the gang leader she has just murdered, but that is not clear). She draws her sword and attacks him, though he is unarmed. In one of the niftier moves in any Shaw Brothers movie, he grabs the blade with both hands, snaps the point off, knocks the sword from her grasp, and waves the tip in her face, delivering one of the movie’s more chilling lines:

“If I don’t leave a mark on your face,

I’m afraid that you’ll forget.”

Now Yuan has seen enough. He throws his teacup, knocking the blade from Rong’s hand, then hangs by his toes from the balcony to pull Qing-Qing back up. Rong says that, for Mr. Yuan’s sake, he will spare Qing-Qing this time, and he and his men go to leave, but that damned girl can’t leave well enough alone, calling that Rong and his bullies turn tail when they see a real fighter. Rong asks Yuan to fight him for friendship’s sake, to dispel any rumors that he might be a coward, and Yuan accepts, asking Rong to go easy on him. Their combat is elegant, respectful, and ends in a draw, so of course Qing-Qing is bored and aggravated by it.

+1 Friendship!

After Rong and his men have gone, she offers half the gold to Yuan, who refuses. We already know he isn’t interested in wealth. So she starts to leave in a huff and he prevents her, at which she promptly drops to the floor and begins to fake cry. He asks if he’s hurt her, and she smiles and shoves him, then runs off, leaving half the gold behind. He packs it up and starts after her, and trails her to a place called Xi Tak Hall, where he asks for “A young man named Wen.” He finds a (very small) mob trying to storm the place looking for Wen, who has injured their friends and family members. Apparently he’s something of a cruel landlord.

Chiang Sheng as Wen Jing.

As they explain all of this to Yuan, my beloved Chiang Sheng walks out. It turns out that he’s playing the villain the crowd is after, Wen Jing. He grabs the leader of the mob and, with one hand, tosses him clear across the courtyard, but Yuan catches him so that he is not injured. Wen Jing asks whether the mob has hired Yuan to act for them, but he answers no, he just doesn’t want anyone to be hurt. His name is Yuan, he says, and he is looking for Wen. Jing says that’s his name, and Yuan says no, the person he’s looking for is younger. Jing hesitates, then smiles and says that he must mean his younger brother, Wen Qing. He invites Yuan inside.

Incidentally, the guy serving the drinks here is Ting Tung,

in case you wanted to look him up.

Jing calls Qing-Qing to join them and Yuan returns the package containing the gold. She is offended, and when he then tries to leave she won’t let him. She asks him to stay for the day, since she has something to ask him. Yuan says he can’t stay; he has other business to conduct, and Jing says that they mustn’t keep him, but Qing-Qing says he only won’t stay because he despises her, so he (Yuan) agrees to stay to avoid an insult. This clearly displeases Jing, but he arranges for a meal to be served anyway.

But seriously, if I told you one of these men was a young woman,

you’d be shocked, right? Couldn’t figure out which one, could ya?

Jing gets drunk at this meal and calls her Qing-Qing rather than “brother Qing,” which of course denotes her gender. She scolds him for being present at all, since Yuan is her guest, not his. Yuan says that really, all he wants is some sleep, and Jing says he can have his room but Qing-Qing insists that he’ll stay in hers. Jing gets angry, and Qing-Qing says she will stay with her mother, but he storms off anyway. Yuan retires to Qing-Qing’s room, but after a little while she comes knocking at the window, saying it’s a beautiful moon and he ought to come watch it with her.

They sit in a gazebo drinking wine and eating fruit, and Qing-Qing plays for him on a flute. The song is beautiful and Yuan enjoys it, but then she breaks the flute over her knee. She is angry that he’ll leave her the next day, and since no one in the house appreciates music or, indeed, anything but fighting, there’s no point to her playing if he isn’t there. He says that, contrary to her belief, he doesn’t despise her, and he wishes she would tell him what’s on her mind. She tells him the story of her mother being raped and she herself being the product of that assault. Yuan says that this is neither her fault nor her mother’s, the fault lies entirely with the rapist. She says that people insult them both, and he answers that these people are themselves shameful. He says that he will certainly come to visit her again, and she grabs his hand.

Nothing important in this shot.

I just think the flowers are pretty.

At this point Jing walks in and accuses them of sneaking around. Yuan, trying to avoid trouble, suggests that everyone just go to bed, but Qing-Qing pushes him back into his seat. She says that she grew these flowers in the garden herself and Jing isn’t allowed to look at them. He says he’ll look wherever he likes unless she plucks out his eyes, and she tears all the flowers out of the beds in a rage. He complains that she treats him so badly even though he’s only ever tried to help her, but she says she doesn’t need him to be good to her. He can go and tell their grandfather and have her kicked out if he likes. Jing storms off.

Hey, whoah, stop that!

Don’t take it out on the flowers!

They ain’t hurtin’ nobody!

Yuan asks how she can treat her brother like this, and she says that Jing isn’t her brother. This is her grandfather’s house, her mother’s name is Wen, and Jing is merely her cousin. If she had a father and a home of her own she wouldn’t have to put up with him. Yuan says she still ought to be nicer to him, and she says that if she was nice she couldn’t stop him stepping out of line, and both laugh. They become sworn brothers on the spot. He invites her to share the room with him but of course she can’t do that, and he watches her leave with a look that makes me wonder how on Earth he doesn’t realize that she’s a woman.

Chiu Gwok, Siao Yuk, and Cheung King-Yu

as three kids who don’t know their place.

The next morning she comes to get him. There’s a delegation come to ask for gold. These are Cui (Chiu Gwok), Suen (Cheung King-Yu), and Mui Jin (Siao Yuk). We think they’re from the Longyou School, but it turns out that they’re Hua Shan, like Yuan. Qing-Qing didn’t steal the gold from Longyou, rather, she and Longyou were both trying to steal it from Hua Shan. She denies the theft and claims that they have no evidence and in fact didn’t even see her. They say they will search the place if she won’t admit it, and she says that the Wen family is wealthy and has many times 2000 in gold lying around. An argument ensues, during which a Wen lackey says he has never seen such a hostile woman, referring to Suen. So, she cuts off his arm to prove that she can be even more hostile.

Oh, I’m gonna show you “hostile.”

A fight breaks out between her and Qing-Qing, and Yuan breaks it up and tries to talk with Suen. He learns that she is a disciple of Gui Xin Shu, the Invincible Fist that we learned about at the beginning of the film. Yuan asks her what the third rule of Hua Shan school is, and when she asks what right he has to question her, says that he too is Hua Shan. The others don’t believe him. He can’t be a student of Gui, or they would know him, and they doubt that he is a student of Wang Zhen (the Iron Abacus), who has judgment too good to accept such a man as a student. Yuan acknowledges that the judgment of Brother Wang is good, and again asks the third rule of Hua Shan. They ask by what right he calls him Brother Wang, and Yuan answers that his master is Mu Ren-Qing. Therefore, Wang Zhen and Gui Xin Shu are his elder brothers. The petitioners say that would make him their uncle, just as Qing-Qing’s grandfather, Master Wen (Wong Lik), enters with a small entourage. The petitioners confirm that the third rule commands them not to kill the innocent. Yuan then upbraids Suen for cutting off the arm of the retainer, who had done nothing to them.

Rule #1 for a Shaw Brothers cinematographer:

you gotta really be able to fill up a screen.

Hearing this, Wen Nan-Yang (Lu Feng), a member of the entourage, wants to attack the petitioners. He is restrained by Master Wen, who wants to hear what the Hua Shan petitioners have to say. At the moment, though, they’re mostly interested in continuing to argue with Yuan, saying that he has no right to criticize them as they have not accepted him as their elder yet. He asks what it would take to convince them, and of course the answer is exceptional kung fu ability. Master Wen is pleased by this, as he has wanted to witness the young man’s skills (which he seems to have heard all about). Meanwhile, Suen draws her sword and stabs at Yuan’s back. He slips neatly aside and grabs her sword blade and, similarly to how Rong did earlier, snaps it in half. “This technique is Worshipping the Guan Yin, right?” he asks. Cui wants to spar, and Yuan suggests that if he can’t take five blows from Yuan it will prove that he’s their superior. Cui agrees and manages to parry the first four blows with some difficulty, but the fifth sends him flying. Yuan catches him, and the kid admits Yuan is his uncle and apologizes.

“...sends him flying” ≠ euphemism.

Mui Jin still needs convincing, though, and challenges Yuan’s swordsmanship. Yuan asks for ten swords, and they are brought. Then he uses the tip of the broken sword from earlier to break Mui’s sword. He takes the first of the ten new swords and tosses it to Mui, inviting him to try again. Same result. Second sword, same result. Third sword, same result, and when Mui reaches for a fourth sword, Yuan holds his own weapon to his throat. Suen protests, and Mui and Yuan begin a regular duel. Yuan must disarm or embarrass him several times before he finally yields.

If it was me, watching my brother fly through the air would’ve been enough to shut me up.

But this kid? This is the sixth or seventh time Yuan has held a sword to his throat,

and he’s still talking shit!

The petitioners says that Suen will apologize, but Qing-Qing doesn’t think this is good enough. They remind her that it is the rules of their school that have been broken and their uncle will deal with them, but in the meanwhile it is still true that all of this only happened because Qing-Qing stole the gold. Yuan asks about the gold, and it turns out that it was raised for the victims of the disaster that Teacher told us about earlier in the film. Yuan says that, if Qing-Qing will return the gold (which, after all, was earned by his master), he will teach the injured man some one-armed swordsmanship techniques. Qing-Qing says that’s fine, but that Suen must also lose an arm. Suen says she’d like to see Qing-Qing try it, and Yuan once again has to break up the fight. He concludes that everyone is too angry to think clearly, but that if Cui will return the next day he can pick up the gold then. The petitioners agree and leave peaceably.

Wong Lik as Master Wen

Anyway, Master Wen has watched all of this and was suitably impressed by Yuan’s skill against the Hua Shan crowd, but also noticed that, while he used Hua Shan kung fu against them during the individual sparring, when he broke up the last confrontation between Qing-Qing and Suen he used a different style, one that stirs bad memories. So he asks Yuan to demonstrate his skills against his entourage, beginning with Nan-Yang (Lu Feng), one of Qing-Qing’s uncles. This fight is necessarily a gorgeous dance, as is always the case when Philip Kwok and Lu Feng fight. A particularly nice element is how Lu Feng keeps his fists inside his flowing sleeves, so the loose ends act as a distraction, as with the tassel on the end of a Chinese spear.

Lu Feng (R). I wanted a picture of the loose sleeves flying,

but he’s so fast that they’re just a blur in stills.

After a moment, Master Wen stops this bout to start another, so that Wen Jing can test Yuan’s skills with weapons. Again, when two Venoms meet, the result is always a thing of beauty. Chiang Sheng is using a pair of shuang gou, wicked-looking hooked swords, which let him show off the speed and grace of his movements, and Philip Kwok uses one of the few unbroken swords brought for the duel with Mui Jin.

Wicked-looking things, aren’t they?

After the two have fought each other to a standstill for a moment, Master Wen sends Wen Fang (Chu Ko) in to help. He attacks with what appears to be a simple spear, but then it turns out that it can be separated into two sections and used as a pair of batons. This fight is especially nice, as Fang smoothly switches between the one long and two short weapons several times.

The long and the short of it.

A-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!

Oh, P.S. Chu Ko as Wen Fang.

At one point Wen Bai-Yang (Yu Tai-Ping), the final member of the entourage, throws a long knife at Yuan, who easily flicks it away with his sword. Finally Master Wen calls a halt to this match, and says that Yuan’s skills are truly matchless, and that he wishes to face him himself. At this point the whole household turns out to watch, including Ching Li as Wen Yi, the woman Yuan has been looking for and the mother of Qing-Qing, who rushes to her side.

Ching Li as Wen Yi

Master Wen invites Yuan to make the first move, and Yuan goes to a small child in the audience and borrows from her a small wooden sword, saying that he can’t risk harming such an august person. Master Wen replies that the skilled can afford to take such risks, and the bout begins. It is again a beautiful display of speed and grace, and during it we see flashbacks to a fight that we haven’t witnessed yet. At one point Yuan presses the head of Master Wen’s metal staff so hard against the floor that the decorative head leaves an impression in the stone, which ends the match, and Yuan returns the wooden sword to the child. But now Jing, Fang, Nan-Yang, and Bai-Yang draw their weapons and surround him. Master Wen accuses him of being an assassin sent by the Golden Snake, because he has recognized this unique kung fu style.

A recurring theme of Shaw Brothers movies is how little anyone seems to care

about odds in a fight being even.

A rather winding conversation follows during which Yuan explains that the Golden Snake is dead and that he, Yuan, has learned his system by reading the manual he left behind. On hearing this news, Wen Yi faints into Qing-Qing’s arms. Master Wen tells her to help her mother from the room, as she is shaming herself, but Qing-Qing has a shocking reply:

Whoah...the plot thickens!

Yuan goes to leave, after agreeing to meet Wen Yi in the garden that night. But first, Master Wen has a question for him: where and how did the Golden Snake die? Yuan says he does not know, as he didn’t see it, and that he will return the following day to settle the question of the gold.

Later we see Yuan sneaking into the garden, where he finds Wen Yi sitting in the gazebo and Qing-Qing playing her flute, no longer masquerading as a man. Yuan, realizing that she’s a woman, says “I feel so dumb,” and it’s hard not to agree with him. They join Wen Yi in the gazebo, and she says that she’s been waiting 18 years for the Golden Snake to come and take her and her daughter away from the Wen family home. But Yuan hears someone on the roof of the gazebo and issues a challenge, and Nan-Yang leaps down into the garden, accusing Wen Yi of now, not satisfied with abandoning her own chastity, leading her daughter to meet men alone at night.

Well, that’s just plain rude.

Wen Yi maintains her dignity and says that no one in the household regards them as family, even though her man saved Nan-Yang’s life. Now we move into an extended series of flashbacks revealing some unsavory family history, and we finally get to meet the Golden Snake as played by Lung Tien-Hsiang. Many years ago, Nan-Yang was in prison awaiting execution for attempting to rape a woman. His Fourth Uncle was supposed to break him out, but never showed. The Golden Snake did it instead and gave him his uncle’s weapons and a large chest, instructing him to take it home and turn it over to his father (Master Wen) or his uncle. Then we see him back at Seh Tek Tong with the box, and one of the uncles (Keung Hon in what’s not even a cameo, really) opens it only to be killed by poisoned arrows, just like the ones in the cave. Master Wen finds a letter in the box, addressed to the “Wen brothers of Shilang School.” Also in the box is the body of the Fourth Uncle.

Invoice: One (1) box of dead uncle.

One (1) metric shit-ton of revenge (pending).

Nan-Yang remarks how malicious the Golden Snake is, and Wen Yi defends him, asking if Nan-Yang remembers why he did this. He says that she’ll justify anything he does, and she responds that “In my heart, he is my husband.” We return to the flashback to find another Wen brother (Kwan Feng) reading out the letter, saying that the dead uncle raped the Golden Snake’s sister and murdered her and the rest of the family to cover it up. Only Golden Snake escaped, and now he wants revenge on the whole Shilang School and the Wens in particular. He intends to murder 50 men and “ravish” ten women to even the score. We see quite a bit of him raiding the house, killing a number of folks, and then vanishing, and the family seems helpless to stop him. Then we see him carry off Wen Yi, but for whatever reason he does not rape her. Perhaps that was an empty threat, or maybe he’s just taken by her in some way, but he tends to her wounds and does not harm her. Some shots in this section seem to have inspired similar scenes in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 19 years later. They feel very familiar.

“Xiaolong, would you like some tea?”
“My name is Wen Yi!”

“Sorry. Keep forgetting which movie I’m in.”

Anyway, ultimately and predictably the two fall in love, but Golden Snake continues his revenge. The family eventually finds his hiding place (the same cave where his body was found by Yuan) and ambush him, but he drives off everyone except Master Wen, who cannot abandon his daughter. Now comes the fight that we saw flashbacks of earlier. Golden Snake defeats Master Wen and has his sword at his throat, but Wen Yi intervenes and Golden Snake spares him for her sake.

Story would’ve gone a lot more smoothly if she’d kept her damned mouth shut.

He walks away but Master Wen attacks and lands a hard blow with his staff on the Golden Snake’s back. Golden Snake again disarms him and again refuses to kill him for Wen Yi’s sake, though this time she (perhaps shocked by the cowardly attack) does not plead for him. After he’s gone we see that Golden Snake is himself pretty badly injured, and this time Wen Yi nurses him back to health. He declares his love for her and promises to end his campaign of revenge. He says he will return her to her home and set out after a treasure he has learned of, then return and marry her once he’s rich.

The (briefly) happy couple.

Of course, she tells Yuan, when she came home unharmed her family assumed she was in cahoots with the assassin and treated her like dirt, but she didn’t care. Soon he would take her away and they’d live happily ever after. And eventually he did sneak into the compound one night, and they finally consummated their love. The next morning they were going to sneak away when her father discovered them, and said that he was willing to let bygones be bygones, but that Golden Snake would have to properly marry Wen Yi rather than eloping with her. Golden Snake agreed, but the family drugged him and crippled him, cutting tendons in his hands and feet so he could never fight again. He escaped (somehow), but she never saw him again. Since then the family has basically held her prisoner. And of course, soon after, she bore his child, Qing-Qing.

Cheaters never win?

Now that the flashback is over, we see Master Wen and the other uncles enter the garden. He accuses Wen Yi of airing the family’s dirty laundry, which is true, of course, but she says that she doesn’t consider any of them her family, since they have rejected her and betrayed her husband. The only reason she has stayed so long is that she hoped he might come back for her (“If I wasn’t here, how would he find me?”), and now that she knows he’s dead she has nothing left to fear. She asks whether Yuan fears them, and he says he doesn’t, so Master Wen asks whether he has the courage to face their Five Elements Array. Yuan agrees, over Wen Yi’s warnings.

Shame to break such a pretty teacup, though.

Of course the Wens attempt to drug Yuan as they did Golden Snake, but Qing-Qing breaks the cup of poisoned tea they offer him with a jade hairpin. Just as an aside: a lot is made in this movie of how unbeatable the Five Elements Array is, but isn’t it easy to win if you always drug your opponent before the fight starts? Anyway Master Wen states the terms of the combat: if Yuan wins, the family will turn the stolen gold over to the petitioners when they arrive and Yuan (and presumably Qing-Qing and Wen Yi) will be allowed to leave in peace; if the family wins, Yuan must turn the hidden treasure (remember that?) over to them. Just as the combat is about to begin, though, Cui shows up with his master, Wang Zhen, the Iron Abacus (Chu Tiet-Wo).

Chu Tiet-Wo as Wang Zhen, the Iron Abacus.

Look at that smile! That man is definitely not afraid of your silly battle formation.

Wang Zhen asks for the gold for the suffering peasants, and Master Wen explains the deal that he’s just struck with Yuan. Wang Zhen considers this ridiculous (as, of course, it is) and asks why Master Wen doesn’t fight Yuan alone if he wishes to teach him a lesson. Master Wen wants to know if Wang Zhen, then, is afraid of the Five Elements Array, and Wang Zhen says that on the contrary he will face it himself before Yuan does. Yuan asks him to change his mind, as he’s an important figure and his school can’t afford to lose him, but Wang Zhen says that he needs Yuan and his younger eyes to watch the formation and find its weaknesses.

No idea at all what’s going on here.

Now we are introduced properly to the Five Elements Array (we did it briefly and fuzzily in the flashback sequence). Five fighters (Master Wen, Nan-Yang, Jing, Wen Fang, and Bai-Yang) arrange themselves in a circle around Wang Zhen, weapons drawn, and then run around the circle, each carefully keeping his place and striking only if Wang Zhen strays too close to the ring. Yuan watches and begins to imagine some sort of zodiacal pattern on the rug they’re fighting on, and deciphers their movements enough for Wang Zhen to escape from the circle (I admit I have no idea how this works; someone smarter, or more knowledgeable about Chinese mythical traditions, will have to explain it). Master Wen says that Wang Zhen’s kung fu must be very good for him to have escaped, but that he still hasn’t won the gold, since the challenge was issued to Yuan. It is clear that he is the real target here. Wang Zhen agrees, saying that Yuan eats too much and it will be a relief to get rid of him but that Master Wen might regret it later. The clan surround him and Master Wen demands that he choose his weapon, and he chooses...the jade hairpin Qing-Qing used to save him from the poisoned tea.

And honestly, considering what candy-asses this family has been portrayed as,

I’m pretty sure this little green stick is enough for the lot of ‘em.

Eight of the Wen family retainers surround the Array, swords drawn, to ensure that Yuan can’t escape. Yuan drops into a crouch and begins to spin counter-clockwise, the Array spins around him clockwise, and then the retainers spin around them clockwise, which is impractical but sure looks good on film. After a moment Yuan stops and sits in the center in a meditative pose; Jing goes to attack but Master Wen demands that he hold his position. The Array reverses its direction, and Yuan then rolls his jacket into a pillow and lays down in the center, yawning.

I can see how this might be interpreted

as a sign of disrespect.

This time it’s Nan-Yang who loses patience and goes to attack, and is once again called off with an admonishment not to fall for Yuan’s tricks. We see that the constant running in a circle is beginning to weaken at least the retainers, and finally Bai-Yang gives up and throws his swords at Yuan. But he’s been waiting for this; he rolls aside, leaps to his feet, and attacks his now-unarmed enemy with the hairpin, at one point nearly sticking it up his nose!

What an embarrassing death that would’ve been, huh?

In order to escape, Bai-Yang leaps onto a table, and when Yuan follows he is outside the circle. He kicks Bai-Yang through a tapestry before the rest of the clan can respond. Wen Jing engages while he’s still on the table, and in leaping over him Yuan cuts some of his topknot loose. Then Wen Fang attacks with his spear but is forced to retreat after being nearly sliced open lengthwise. The five regroup, but the Array is broken. Now it becomes a free-for-all, with both the clan and the retainers attacking. Allowing the retainers to take an active role proves to be a misstep, however, as Yuan easily overpowers them and throws them around like sacks of potatoes, their flying bodies disrupting the attacks of their teammates. There is a break in the fighting as the bad guys once again fall back to regroup, and Qing-Qing claps for her hero, who returns her hairpin. She smiles and places it back in her hair, and Bai-Yang is outraged at her siding with the family’s enemy. He again throws his swords, this time at Qing-Qing, but Wen Yi steps in the way, shielding her daughter at the cost of her own life.

Man, dirtier and dirtier! Chang Cheh wanted to make sure

we hated these villains, didn’t he?

Wen Yi collapses into a chair, and Qing-Qing, Yuan, Wang Zhen, and Cui all gather around her. Wen Yi tells Qing-Qing, “Don’t be sad. I’m going to meet your father.” She asks Yuan whether Golden Snake mentioned her, and he shows her the message that whoever finds the treasure must give 100K to her. She’s happy, and asks Yuan to look after the only loved one she has, Qing-Qing, and dies.

“Holy shit, dude, I totally forgot you’re in this movie!

You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on since I last saw you!”

Just at this moment, the servant jumps over the wall and rushes in, handing the Golden Snake’s weapons to Yuan. Yuan then declares that he will use the Golden Snake’s legacy (his weapons and the knowledge in his manual) to avenge the Golden Snake’s death, which certainly seems fitting. He fights the five clan members while his friends hold off (well, kill) the retainers. He begins, while deflecting blows from everyone, by focusing his attacks on Bai-Yang, the actual killer of Wen Yi, who is also clearly the weak link. Bai-Yang keeps attempting to escape, leaping through the air and throwing his swords at the pursuing Yuan, but to no avail, and he’s quickly finished off. The fighting here is so fast and fought on so many fronts that it would be impossible to describe adequately, and anyway you ought to watch the movie, but after some acrobatic trickery Yuan is able to cut off Master Wen’s right leg, removing him from the bout.

Yup, that’s his body flying one way and his leg flying the other.

Of course, anyone who has seen Crippled Avengers (a previous Venoms film)

knows that this will only make him more dangerous.

Now Jing manages to strip Yuan’s sword from him; it flies into the air and sticks in the ceiling, twenty or more feet above. But of course this is kung fu, and Yuan can jump that high. So can Jing, though, and the two engage in some high-altitude combat, far above the other two combatants, that ends when Jing is killed by Yuan’s darts (weirdly setting off a fireworks display). Yuan retrieves his sword, and on the way back down slashes Wen Fang’s chest open. Now it’s really just Yuan and Nan-Yang, Philip Kwok and Lu Feng ending a film between themselves, which Shaw Brothers fans are definitely used to. Wen Fang does manage to get one more blow in, but the fight is basically over now; Yuan finally jumps over a high screen, off the wall behind, and then back through the screen, slashing both remaining brothers as he flies past them.

Just waiting for the bodies to hit the floor.

Master Wen is still alive, of course, and Qing-Qing picks up a sword and goes to kill him, but Yuan stops her. His whole family is dead, his legacy in ruins, and he himself is a cripple. It is enough. Cui grabs the gold, Yuan hands his weapons to the servant, then picks up and carries Wen Yi’s body, and all the good guys walk off to ANOTHER SHAW PRODUCTION.

* * * * * * *

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM:

I like the complexity of the plot that the Golden Snake has set up. Hide your legacy in such a way that only a righteous man will find it. Give him, with your martial arts manual and your weapons, the strength to stand up to the Wen family. Set up the manual in such a way that the righteous man won’t realize there’s something missing ‘til he’s completed his training. Then send him on a treasure hunt that must lead him to Wen Yi, at which point he’ll discover the truth and avenge the Snake against the family. It couldn’t possibly work in real life, but it’s good fun on the screen.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM:

The movie isn’t lean enough. There’s too much fat. Most egregious is the prologue. Yuan Shung-Wun is supposed to have been a terribly important person, a fighter for justice and “liberty” (which in context really means “the right to be ruled by the autocratic Han rather than the autocratic Manchu”) but is never mentioned by any character after his son is delivered to Mu Ren-Ching. His death was tragic, and yet his son, our main character, is not motivated by revenge (which at least makes him unique among Shaw heroes). The Wen family had nothing to do with his death. So why include that bit at all? There are other examples. How about this: Mu Ren-Ching mentions that he had two other students, and we discuss them briefly. Later we meet one, Wang Zhen, but we never meet the other, and he’s only mentioned in passing. Why mention him at all, then? I’ve heard that this, like so many Shaw Brothers movies, was taken from a novel by the great Jin Yong, and it’s possible that these things carry over from the book, where they have more meaning (not having read the book I can’t say...it’s hard to find English translations of Jin’s work). To that I reply 1) I’ve also heard that it bears little resemblance to the novel beyond the name, so I’m not sure that’s the case, and 2) that’s no excuse. When adapting a work from another medium, you cut out the things you don’t need. These things should have been cut.

SHAWISMS:

The Gender-Swap is the obvious one, and it’s more annoying in this one than usual. I think that’s because the only character who doesn’t know Qing-Qing is a woman is our hero. Her family is obviously humoring her, but they slip a few times, and even Master Rong makes clear reference to her gender when talking to her. It just makes Yuan look stupid that he’s the only one not in on the joke.

PICKING NITS:

First I have to pick on myself: I can’t tell the difference between Lam Chi-Tai and Chu Ko. I know they’re both in this, I know that one of them is the guy who falls for the arrow trap in the cave and the other is the spear-wielding Wen Fang, but even after extensive research, looking at every picture of the two I could find on the Web, I’m not sure which is which. I hope I’ve attached the correct actor to each role, but I might be wrong. I also hope this doesn’t mean I’m just another racist Westerner to whom all Chinese look alike. I also also hope eventually to be able to decide for sure which is which, after seeing one or both in more movies, and straighten this out. For now I beg the indulgence of anyone that does know the difference who happens to read this. Oh, and please clue me in the comments.

!?! !?! !?!

The Golden Snake’s skeleton was next to, and leaning against, another chest in the cave. Why did no one open it? What was in it? After discovering the contents of the buried chests, surely someone’s curiosity should have been aroused.

!?! !?! !?!

As mentioned, Yuan digging a grave for the Golden Snake with a stick and his bare hands is a lot of work. But of course, when his servant warns him of the approaching villains, he re-buries the chest and fills the hole back up, which ought to have been nearly as much work and still without a shovel. Which raises the question, how far away were the villains when the servant spotted them? Because it obviously took them a long time to get there, if Yuan had time for all that. And if they were that far away, how did the servant know they represented a danger?

!?! !?! !?!

I wish I lived in a world where a man could become a kung fu master by reading a book.

!?! !?! !?!

When Suen attacks Yuan, he breaks the tip off her sword. Then a few minutes later, when Qing-Qing is threatening to cut her arm off, she draws her sword and it’s whole again. Magic!

!?! !?! !?!

Why doesn’t Qing-Qing take part in the final battle? We know she can fight. And her mother has just been straight murdered, which ought to be some incentive. Okay, she can’t get into it with the Array, since we want Yuan to handle that himself, but she could have joined in with the guys who were holding off the retainers, couldn’t she? Is this just a Chang Cheh thing?

!?! !?! !?!

Why is this movie called The Sword Stained With Royal Blood? There’s not a drop of royal blood spilled in this thing, by sword or otherwise. I get that it was the name of the book, but given how little the plots have in common, it might have been worth changing the name.

THOUGHTS:

I wonder whether there’s any significance to the fact that the servant is mute. That’s such an odd little touch (and one that doesn’t affect the plot at all) that it feels like it ought to symbolize something, but I am not a sufficiently-versed student of Chinese culture to know whether it does or not. Of course, I also wonder whether Wong Wa actually had a speech impediment of some kind, or perhaps just couldn’t believably deliver a line of dialog. I’ve seen him in two films, and in those two films he has said not a single word (he is also the Iron Axe in The Flag Of Iron). If anyone can shed light on either of these questions in the comments, I’d appreciate it.

I really enjoy the characterization of Wang Zhen, the Iron Abacus. He is unfailingly polite to the Wen family, even though he knows that they’ve stolen his gold and mean to kill Yuan (and are perfectly willing to kill Wang himself). Chu Tit-Wo plays him with a big, friendly smile that never disappears for more than a second, and his manner never slips. Master Wen largely responds in kind, which is also pretty neat, though he’s still pretty strident. And Philip Kwok, of course, has been behaving this way throughout the film. I like the idea that being in a deadly struggle for treasure and revenge is no excuse for bad manners. I feel like that, too, is particularly Chinese, though not uniquely; some Western movies (The Grand Illusion springs immediately to mind) have a similar vibe.

Conversely, Qing-Qing’s characterization is...well, not poorly-done, assuming they were trying to make her unlikeable, but I don’t know why they would do that. She’s selfish, petulant, and bloodthirsty, as well as grotesquely immature. The movie seems to forgive her for all of this, since she’s Yuan’s love interest, but I don’t. I admit she’s had some trouble in her life, but that’s just no excuse for the way she behaves. I have no idea why Yuan would be interested in her beyond the fact that she’s undeniably pretty. I wish they had put a little more work into this character.

It’s interesting the way music is used in Shaw Brothers films, and I wish someone would write a book (or at least a decent academic paper) about it. Run-of-the-mill productions seem to have been mostly scored by stock music, regardless of the fact that they would still have composers listed in the credits, and even larger productions with some apparently original pieces would still rely on the library for the grunt work. More than that, the stock music often seems to have been picked more or less at random. I mentioned during the synopsis that the music playing over the opening credits is completely incongruous; it is distinctly Western, referring not just to the global West but the genre. It has absolutely no place in this film. On the other hand, the little tune Qing-Qing plays on the flute, which is later developed into a larger piece in the manner of “As Time Goes By” becomes a recurring musical motif in Casablanca, appears to have been original to the film. If it was, it was masterfully composed by the credited Eddie Wong, and if it came from the library it was clearly chosen with great care. It suits the on-screen action perfectly as well as being beautiful in its own right, and I wish I had it on my iPod. Why couldn’t the studio have been more consistent in their music? It could only have elevated the films.

My final takeaway for this movie is that, well, it has its flaws. Fortunately, though, the worst of them are concentrated at the beginning of the film. Ten minutes in, you might be wondering whether you should bother to watch the rest of it, but it picks up as it goes and ends with a stirring string of action that ranks among the studio’s best. Top ten Shaw Brothers for me, and one that’s in pretty steady rotation in my re-watching.