The Condemned (1976)

David Chiang

Hong Kong

102 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2003 Branislav L. Slantchev

Chan Shen and Pai Ying: EVIL	Gratuotous shot of a beautiful woman
Davind Chiang is unmanly	Lily Li in love (for unfathomable reasons)

This is the worst film in the Shaw Brothers series I have seen thus far. Directed by star David Chiang, it is a long, boring, unimaginative, and uninspired story of a petty thief who learns an important lesson in life at a terrible cost mostly suffered by everyone else. With enough hammy acting to make a six-foot long Subway party special sub, extremely bad martial arts choreography, and atrocious dubbing of the main character, the film delivers a whoopass of disappointment like no film since the Tomb Raider sequel has done.

Bastard wrote for himself scenes with Lily	Irony: the thief was robbed

Briefly, Sheng (Ku Feng) and Lung (Pai Ying) are bad news. They terrorize an entire town by mostly killing off competitors to Sheng's kung fu school and indulging in occasional highway robbery, all under the nose of the incompetent (but not corrupt) officer of the law Feng (Kong Yeung). During the often viciously bloody process of eliminating good citizens, these guys run into Feng Dagang (played by Tsai Hung with woodiness that is only rivaled by Keanu Reeves). He is a great fighter, so they don't kill him although he does end up in a prison cell while Feng investigates whether he's the one who has killed all the extras that the two baddies had eliminated.

The Thief and the Condemned	Gratuotous shot of Lily Li

Yang Lin (David Chiang) is a thief with a high-pitched and very annoying voice who frequents the brothel run by Red Point (Hu Chin) but not for the expensive carnal pleasures with professionals but for the much cheaper, although no less fun, bed romps with Red Point's maid Baoying (Lily Li). The instant we see Lily Li, we know that she is destined to die under unnecessarily tragic and pointless circumstances, as befits a script by I Kuang.

Prison Dreams	Hu Chin is the whore Red Point

She begs him to quit his thieving magpie impersonation, to which he responds in the affirmative and immediately proceeds to pick-pocket the perverted evil Liang (Chan Shen), who appears to be Lung's brother or at least associate. This lands Yang Lin in prison, and, for script's convenience, in the cell with the condemned Dagang. It's not exactly clear why he is condemned although breaking all those nice rice bowls in fits of anger must have cost the taxpayers some good money.

Tsai Hung is the Condemned	Hush, little baby, don't say a word

Yang Lin gets himself roughed up by the rough Dagang until they establish rapport, which itself is nearly destroyed when Sheng bribes Yang Lin to kill the condemned. Eternal friendship is established with Lin confessing to Dagang, and the two escaping the prison in an ineptly directed break out.

David Chiang gets the crap beat out of him	Ku Feng shows David how to model

But they don't run away because Lin has to go back for Baoying, where he is captured by the bad guys. They torture them but do not manage to get Lin to betray his new friend. So they rape Baoying, which gets Lin really pissed. Unfortunately, he is a weakling so he mostly gets beaten up until the Condemned reappears and murders everyone in sight. Baoying hangs herself and the two "heroes" go back to the prison, this time really condemned.

Pai Ying is Four Eyes Evil	Would think if only had a brain

The final dramatic scene supposedly demonstrates how Lin has been transformed from a care-free pickpocket with no responsibilities into a mature person. At least that's what I thought they wanted to show with that shot of him slowly moving toward the cell without smiling. The other guy is the same stupid fighter he started out to be, so nothing much can be said there. The bad guys overacted so excessively, even by lax Hong Kong standards, that I had to quickly watch another Ku Feng film just to get the bad taste out of my brain.

The End of Innocence	Come out, you condemned bastard!

This film has no redeeming values whatsoever despite starring the absolutely delicious Lily Li and the somewhat less attractive Hu Chin. There are plenty of fight scenes, but they are amazingly bad, with very stiff, choppy, and quite conventional movement.

The Condemned battles Ku Feng	Lily Li, raped and about to kill herself

The DVD itself is fine, with an anamorphic widescreen picture that looks rather good. Only a Dolby Digital mono Mandarin soundtrack is available although I wish I could hear David Chiang's character dubbed in Cantonese. The English subtitles are also good and the extras include a still gallery, trailers, and talent files.

Who's got no eyes no, Four Eyes?	The two condemned march to their cell

November 24, 2003