The Golden Sword
(Long men jin jian, 1969)

Lo Wei

Hong Kong

100 min, color, Mandarin (English subtitles)

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

On a dark and stormy night, two masked horsemen appear at the gates of The Golden Sword lodge and demand to see its master, Bai Chun Tung (Lo Wei). They refuse to divulge either their identities or the purpose of their visit. Instead, they give Housekeeper Pang (Yang Chi-ching) a small jewelry box which he delivers to Bai who takes one look at its contents, rushes out to the visitors, and rides away with them into the drenching rain never to be heard from again. By any account, a promising beginning for any film, wuxia or otherwise.

Lo Wei discovers the lost screenplay pages	Snowy winter scene on the set

Years later, the massive search for Bai turns up empty but his only son, the talented, if somewhat effeminate, swordsman Lung (Kao Yuen) refuses to accept that and instead launches an investigation of his own. As he travels through the remote studio sets of Northern China and wades on horseback through the indoor forests covered with white powder that looks like snow, he meets with a beggar (Cheng Pei-pei). At this point, the film takes an unexpected turn that would consume more than a half of its length and the goings on will only have a peripheral connection with the mystery that opened the story.

If this is a man, I am a metrosexual	Kao Yuen explains why Galileo was wrong to Chow Sui Loi

Leave it to Lo Wei to muck up not one but two separately interesting stories that I Kuang developed by combining them inappropriately into a single feature. I am not talking about his directing either which does leave something to be desired. On one hand, I am a total sucker for winter scenes (can't explain it) and I usually do not mind the obvious indoor studio setting although they do look better when shot on location, like some of the sequences in The Shadow Whip. I am also a fan of Cheng Pei-pei to such an extent that I will forgive any director for using any excuse to place her wielding some cutting implement in the midst of a crowd of mean-looking extras who are up to no good. Occasionally, I can tolerate even a truly awful musical number like the one in this film when she breaks out into a song on vocal frequencies whose ultrasonic sound waves can cause the collapse of cavitation bubbles with military effectiveness.

Cheng Pei-pei questions Kao Yuen's chivalrous intent	Obligatory shot of an intense Cheng Pei-pei

All of this is to say that I did not object to the subplot involving her. It actually has some pretty good scenes. For starters, Lung takes her for a man in the time-honored tradition of people going blind to clearly feminine aspects of physique and oblivious to facial features that at the very least should cause them to think that this dude is one very pretty drag queen. At any rate, the good-hearted Lung invites beggar Ngai to stay in his room at the inn in what can be construed either as kind-heartedness or a barely concealed homosexual urge. The scene that ensues is hilarious: Lung naturally assumes that he will share his bed with Ngai (wouldn't YOU share YOUR bed with a handsome stranger?) and to do that, they both have to get at least marginally undressed (YOU wouldn't want to share YOUR bed with a DRESSED stranger, now would you?) Ngai, who has no illusions about her own gender, makes an excuse that would put paid even to the most ardent good Samaritan: she begs off on account of being infested with lice.

The awful dance and song number	More intense Cheng Pei-pei

This nearly works: she curls up on the floor and Lung has to grab a cold shower to cool down his ardent totally non-sexual desire to snuggle with the pretty beggar. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he notices that the heating system has gone out and Ngai seems to be freezing on the floor. Lung immediately shares his duvet and then slides comfortably next to his guest without any implied sexual objective. Fortunately, her lice turn up to be real enough to cause him to leap out of position, out of the room, and into the main inn hall where he runs into his drinking buddies from last night who are unhappy on account of the gold they had been transporting having been stolen. A melee ensues in which Cheng Pei-pei makes mincemeat of a bunch of extras, including a sinister-looking Ku Feng.

Cheng Pei-pei as unlikely humble bride	Huang Chung-Shun ruefully reminiscing about facial glue

The inevitable love that will blossom between Ngai and Lung amid the bloody carnage she perpetrates at almost any turn makes for one charming romance. Imagine Lung's relief when he discovers that the object of his non-sexual affections really is a woman. Further, all that blood-letting and assorted swordplay mayhem is all done for a good cause. Ngai is a member of a beggar clan which apparently is some sort of a Sinicized Robin Hood gang and its men (and women) are indeed merry, if that aforementioned musical number is any indicator of mirth. In the ensuing many fights and a marriage, we almost forget what Lung was supposed to be doing in the first place: solving his dad's disappearance.

I demand to see my lawyer or my mommy	Sexual harassment is fun

But not to worry, he will come to his filial senses on the wedding night. That's right, with Ngai looking seductively with obvious carnal intent, Lung gets distracted by his failure to locate his father. Even Ngai is stunned that he has any blood left in the brain to direct any functions higher than stripping at this point. Without much fanfare, Lo Wei shifts the plot back on the initial track, causing Cheng Pei-pei's character to drop out of the picture almost entirely. Although Ngai will appear in several scenes and will serve to advance the plot at one other critical juncture, she will not be fighting any more. She has been tamed and turned into the good wife whose proper place is to stay at home to look after her husband or, when he is gone, to look for him. What a waste.

Nothing beats the lap of a paralyzed hubby	These men are so funny...

The rest of the story is somewhat complicated and should not be divulged. Suffice to say it has to do with the so-called Dragon Palace, a place crammed full of girls trained in superior martial arts and pining for men. Well, okay, I added that last one but it's an educated guess. These gals actually run some sort of a quarry although the purpose of the excavations eluded me (perhaps stones to continue building the palace or maybe conflict diamonds). The men who work there are convicts of the somewhat extralegal court the ladies have set up to enforce their CC&Rs (covenants, conditions and restrictions). These bylaws are literally written in stone, which makes them as important as the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain.

Kao Pao-shu demonstrates right-hand pinch-fu	Conflict diamonds, my ass

Unlike the commandments of Yahwe, however, these CC&Rs are somewhat lacking in their take no prisoners (or, perhaps I should say, take ALL prisoners) approach to men. If a guy shows up at the palace, he can either leave (provided he has not strayed too close) or fight with someone like the 7th Lady (Kao Pao-shu) who can pinch a blade with her two fingers and hold it while the guy thrashes at its other end. In other words, the man is bloody unlikely to win. And losers are carted off to the quarries, where discipline could give a Stalinist gulag master something to learn. Attempted escapes are punished by throwing the would-be escapee into a snake pit. And these reptilians are not of the type to squander their poison on each other. If, on the other hand, the man succeeds in unmasking one of the ladies, he must immediately marry her. It is not clear what the provisions are if he unmasks more than one (limit to three wives perhaps), if he unmasks a married one, or if he himself is married. It's that last problem that Lung will have to face when he accidentally unmasks the daughter of the 7th lady (Alice Au Yin-Ching).

Lemme have a piece of that baby, fatso	Gratuitous shot of an intricately lighted Cheng Pei-pei

Whatever may be said about the plot (and it all does come together in the end), the fighting sequences that do not involve Cheng Pei-pei are worthless. Lo Wei himself is too chubby to be believable as a premier martial artist (Sammo Hung, who pops up as a thug, is the only fatso who is good at this). The lead Kao Yuen is entirely forgettable and comes nowhere close to type of swordsmen that Ti Lung or Jimmy Wang would portray. Before someone dismisses this as some yearning for machismo (to which I admit), let me just say that this does not mean I object to female leads. Far from it. As any reader of these reviews would know, I am a huge fan. What I do not like is reducing the men to sniveling sidekicks. It's that very problem that caused the decline of the traditional Hong Kong cinematic preoccupation with women and placed the work of people like Chang Cheh to the limelight. Lo Wei hews to the old school here, and the result ain't that pretty.

Wang Lai demonstrates left-hand pinch-fu	Do we have a quorum to vote on the amendment of the bylaws?

The Celestial DVD presents the film at 2.35:1 aspect ratio in an anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks pretty good considering the age of the stock. It's very clean and looks gorgeous (even in all these fake outdoor sets). I only listened to the Dolby Digital 5.1 Mandarin soundtracks, which is quite nice. The optional English subtitles are pretty good as well. It's astonishing that even old Shaw Brothers films look so gorgeous and well-preserved compared to Hong Kong fare from the 1980s. The extras include trailers, talent files, and a photo gallery. Fans of Cheng Pei-pei should definitely own this. For everyone else, it's a rental at best.

January 22, 2006