Bat Without Wings
(Wu yi bian fu, 1980)

Chu Yuan

Hong Kong

88 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2005 Branislav L. Slantchev

A lesser, although still quite entertaining, wuxia by the prolific Chu Yuan, Bat Without Wings is not going to be entering any canons except the Joyce hall of fame for sheer inventiveness in plot intricacy. As usual with this director, the sheer multitude of characters (all scrupulously named) with uncertain shifting loyalties and those without loyalties at all makes it difficult to keep track of who's cheating whom. Thankfully, the heroes frequently summarize the finer points of the story and explain (to each other, although one cannot help but wonder if these helpful asides are not meant for us, the bewildered audience) their motivation, as well as the tricks they have employed to trick the ones who were trying to trick them.

A copyright lawsuit waiting to happen	Gratuitous shot of Liu Lai Ling

I was deterred for a long time from watching this film because of its atrocious cover that made it look like the villain was either a Kiss fanatic or perhaps even a member of the band. I have some particular aversion to goofy villains but in this case the pained mask is mercifully rarely seen. This is a typical genre film, with plenty of action (some of it quite good, actually), silly gimmicks, betrayed friends or people who thought were friends, as well as exotic weapons (usually poisons), and a bevy of stunning leading ladies, all lovingly shot in fogs, in soft focus, in romantic gazebos, and sometimes even in an occasional inn (still in soft focus).

Customer complaints handled immediately	Gratuitous shot of Ouyang Pei Shan

Without giving much of the story, let me provide a brief synopsis. Five years before the events of the film, a bunch of supposedly good fighters confront a masked and extremely efficient killer by the moniker Bat Without Wings (Tang Ching). They attempt to put an end to his long reign of lustfulness (at least that's what the subtitles claim he is... "lusty") which apparently includes the decidedly unfriendly acts of kidnapping women, raping them, and killing them. We later find out that the guy is somewhat of an aspiring artist because he has carved many of their breasts into stone. As any artist with thwarted aspirations, he turns to mass murder, just ask Hitler how bad it can be. Anyway, he is supposedly killed in that epic battle but we all know that this can't be so.

Two bats don't make a right	Derek Yee: hot and skillful with... the sword

Fast forward to the present, where the stunning Lei-feng (Ouyang Pei Shan) and her merely pretty maid Qiuju (Liu Lai Ling) accompanied by at least four hundred extras come across a roadside eatery where a disheveled Ku Feng hands Lei-feng a letter purportedly by the heroic swordsman Xiao Qi (Derek Yee) who supposedly asks Lei-feng to meet him at an abandoned temple during the night, where he will be waiting for her with nothing but gentlemanly intentions (he will be showing her his collection of miniature Qing dynasty figurines). Leaving aside the small problem with Lei-feng never having met Xiao Qi and being betrothed to a less heroic swordsman (Ku Kuan Chung), she immediately sets out to the obvious trap.

Moody ghost in supernatural green	Ku Feng slightly deranged

Ku Feng's lack of restauranteur experience is immediately revealed as he kills all the customers after donning the stupid "bat without wings" mask, cape and all. Meanwhile, Lei-feng arrives at the temple where she is not in the least disturbed by the total absence of any sign of hospitality except a suspiciously set table with fresh food. She drinks some wine and at this point she is doomed by the rules of the Guild of Wuxia Writers who demand that any drink shown on screen in such settings be poisoned. Sure enough, Ku Feng shows up, duels Lei-feng (both with weapons and words), and eventually hacks her to death. I am now starting to develop a sneaky suspicion that he may not be a good guy.

Ku Feng showing Kazakh dance moves	These three share one brain

Lei-feng's dad (Wong Yung) and her fiancee set out to look for her but are compelled to ask the heroic swordsman Xiao for help after first accusing him of kidnapping her. Then it gets really complicated. Our trio (dad, fiancee, hero) are looking for the villain-with-the-stupid-name, a headless ghost shows up, then another one (with head, in riding hood), then Ching Li and the sultry Liu Hui Ling distract everyone from the right path, then a lot of traps are set with people pretending to be dead. This last elaborate trap is actually quite funny because the assassins (no idea who they are working for yet) have poisoned the small lake with something that works, but does not smell, like sulphuric acid. They play tag with swords for a while, trying to dunk our trio, separately or collectively, into the deadly water. They succeed in getting our three characters to hang from a tree right above the pond but the inventive and indomitable Xiao sticks his sword and its scabbard into the pool's marshy bottom, hops on them as if on stilts, grabs the dad and the fiancee (one in each hand), and hurls them to safety ashore. Then he further defies even the somewhat lax gravity rules in wuxia flicks by balancing on one leg while removing the sword, and then jumping (with one leg) all the way to shore, straight into the fray. Whew!

Derek Yee unhappy with upstairs neighbors	Balancing on the wedge of believability

That's not the only source of mirth in the adventures of our three heroes. They make it through a bamboo labyrinth (we're told it's enchanted with Taoist magic, which apparently is very exhaustive in its range and can only be overcome by doing the opposite of what one is likely to do), and they end up in yet another house full of deadly surprises, like iron cages and trap doors. On one occasion, Xiao is forced to plunge his trusted sword into the ceiling, and hang from it while holding the hapless fiancee by his collar long enough for the father to offer the firm support of his sword upon whose blade both of them manage to balance. If that's not enough, we have tons of explosives rigged to the strings of a zither although why one has to tear the strings rather than just pull them remains a mystery.

So why did I want these blades again?	Gratuitous shot of Ching Li

In the end, all this confusing betrayal turns out to have been for that most prosaic of reasons: greed (oh yes, and that "mastery of the martial arts world" that is so coveted in this film although one is never told what exactly this entails aside from a bunch of cocky startups perennially trying to kill you for it). Well, greed is at least one the minds of several of the villains; at least one woman has done her part out of misplaced loyalty to her deceased lover, and at least one villain hasn't done anything because he's quite mad (in a non-villainly sort of way). Everyone then gets his/her just deserts, which mostly means that a lot of people die right after revealing their motivation and failing to kill the supposedly defeated opponents. Ku Feng's demise is (un)intentionally hilarious as he tries to impersonate the "Bat Without Wings" forgetting that if the bat has no wings, it cannot fly all that well.

Gratuitous shot of Liu Hui Ling	Fall for this poison trick? Moi?

So there's not much going for this film except attractive leads (not just the ladies, but the heart-throb Derek Yee and the dependably competent Ku Feng), neat melodrama that involves so many minor characters that nobody can really care, and an abundance of action sequences with the occasional very cool stunt. This certainly is nowhere near Chu Yuan's deservedly more famous fantasy films but it still packs enough punch to let one make an evening of it. So I'd still recommend it to any fan of the wuxia genre. Just don't take it too seriously or all entertainment value may vanish like so much fake haze.

Note to selves: next time kill first, show intestines later	Delirious mirth

The Celestial DVD is very nice (almost no manipulation of screen caps except resizing and sharpening), and it presents the film in its original 2.35:1 ratio in what is claimed to be an anamorphic transfer. The Mandarin soundtrack is crisp and dynamic, and the English subtitles are almost fun-free (that is, almost no silly turns of phrase or spelling errors). The extras include some behind-the-scenes photos, stills from the film, trailers, a reproduction of the original poster, and brief talent files for the leads. A very good DVD of a somewhat average film.

November 30, 2005