Clans of Intrigue
(Chu liu xiang, 1977)

Chu Yuan

Hong Kong

95 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2003 Branislav L. Slantchev

Here's another delicious serving from the prolific Shaw Brothers studio, now digitally remastered in the excellent series of DVDs being issued by Celestial Pictures. Directed by Chu Yuan, the film features a strong cast of perennial favorites like the heart-throb Ti Lung and deviously smart Yueh Hua, all surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women like Nora Miao, Li Ching, and Betty Pei Ti. Although the fighting scenes are somewhat muted in favor of the suspense story, the sumptuous costumes, excellent sets, and some gender-bender goings on make Clans of Intrigue an instant classic.

Ti Lung is master thief Chu Liu-hsiang	Nora Miao is Kung Nan-yen
Nora votes for Bush	Three friends, at least two traitors

The story is based on a popular novel by Ku Lung and concerns the exploits of legendary master swordsman Chu Liu-hsiang (Ti Lung) who gets framed by a ruthless villain in a very complicated plot to take over the "boxer's world," by which I presume they mean casino control, prostitution racket, drug smuggling, and murder for hire. There are three gangs who have, in their usual gang fashion, divided the territory. There's also a fourth female gang which is running a castle racket although I was not exactly sure what their angle was. They do run a lair that would make every James Bond villain want to change his sex.

My name is Chu, Hsiang Chu	Ling Yun is Yi Tien-hung
Wu Hua on the art of sailing	Li Ching is the meddlesome Black Pearl

The ruthless villain, as is apt to happen in these films, is masked. Naturally, we immediately begin to suspect the most innocent-looking people of foul play. Unfortunately, the guy who does turn out to be the villain is not sufficiently innocent-looking, so he never falls under suspicion. This is called masterful directing. For a while it did not really matter who the guy was because I was busy jotting down names, face sketches, and bio data for the five thousand characters that marched through the set only to disappear into cinematic oblivion. I know that Chinese kung-fu stories have always been damned by this needless proliferation of characters but it's one thing to do this when you have 10,000 pages (the average length of a medium-sized kung-fu novel) and quite another if you have a paltry 90 minutes to tell a complicated story.

Yen Nan-Hsi is the beauty in the portrait	A long time ago, in a province far away
An armful of babes	Salt and pepper, anyone?

Chu Yuan has never been one to skimp on detail, and I swear he filmed every primary and secondary character from the novel. Fortunately, however, you don't have to remember them all. You only need to keep track of Chu Liu-hsiang (instantly recognizable by the perpetual grin for perpetual peace on his face), sometimes look out for the monk Wu Ha (Hua Yueh), and not for his dabbling in the verse arts, while here and there taking stock of whatever the killer 'A Red Spot' (Ling Yun) is doing. Not to make this list appear too male-centric, I will throw in Black Pearl (Li Ching) as one to keep an eye on. Of course, regardless of whether I say it or not, everyone will be keeping an eye on Nora Miao.

Pei Ti is Yin Chi of Magic Water Palace	Steamy lesbian sex
Gratuitous shot of Nora Miao	Two star-crossed lovers

I cannot, in good conscience, tell you the twisted story because this might ruin the enjoyment of the film. Suffice to say that unless you are extremely skilled in putting two and two together, you will not known what the heck is going on until the last half and hour. It all becomes clear in the end. Well, almost all. Some things remain a mystery. For example, given that the ruthless villain and ex-lover has betrayed one gal to elope with another (the latter being the current lesbian lover of the villain's ex), why would the doubly-betrayed ex still want the guy back, especially given that she has already "switched sides" so to speak and has developed a healthy attraction for the same sex? No, no, no! The villain having been a female before does not count. He certainly is not one now! This sort of question is natural, especially when one sees what happens next, which is that the naive ex-lesbian-cum-current-of-her-own-ex gets skewered from behind (this is not a reference to some particularly vicious mating ritual, she gets stabbed). The fog clears a bit after she stabs her libidinous-ex-female-current-for-a-second-and-now-doubly-ex lover with her arm. I mean it too: with her arm. By hurling it at him. Hurling. After having ripped it out of her torso. By herself. To add some air of reality to the proceedings, the director has her bleed attractively from her lips. In fact, everyone bleeds from the mouth regardless of which part of the body was injured. This is the result of ancient Chinese misunderstanding about human anatomy.

Hey, this water is POISONED!	Chen Tzu-chia, Li Ching, Ha Ping, Liu Hui-lung, ???
And here's how you skewer the bull	Man, I'm sooooo cool

The film ends a little bit on the high note given that none of the nice characters perish but all of the ones who displayed even tiny tendencies toward self-promotion get dragged through the mud. This makes the film a morality play. Fortunately, there are several nice distractions, like Ti Lung munching on a corpse's hand surrounded by the throng of 'babes' (subtitle translation of what I presume were 'students'). Not to be missed.

Betrayal's OK, but I let you use my MASCARA!	Stop giggling or I'll spit on you

The Celestial DVD is very nice with a non-anamorphic widescreen 1:2.35 picture, bright readable subtitles (with only occasional errors), and a decent Dolby Digital 5.1 Mandarin (and Cantonese, although I did not listen to it) mixes. The extras include a trailer, photo gallery that includes behind-the-scenes stills, talent info, and three utterly useless interviews (subtitled) with some people who discuss the film although being completely unrelated to it. One of them seems to have written a bunch of reviews. So have I, but I still wouldn't discuss the film on DVD.

This very nice DVD is the one and only way to own the film, which you want to do anyway. Admit it.

June 12, 2003