Mask of Vengeance
(Fung Lau Chaan Kim Huet Miu Han, 1980)

Pao Hsueh Li

Hong Kong

100 min, color, English

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

You know you're in trouble when the DVD advertises itself (and the film) as Mask of Venjence. If the studio could not be bothered to look up one of the three English words, do you seriously think that this release would be anything more than a non-glorified transfer from a shoddy VHS? I have no idea why anyone would put out a product like that, and I really wonder why anyone would spend time dubbing it in English just to butcher it afterwards. I hope they recuperated some of the money they had to pay all these people to do that ridiculous dubbing.

Shih Szu not happy impersonating this guy's wife	Short on budget, long on skirts

Lest anyone think that if it were not for the awful transfer this film could have rivaled Citizen Kane, let me make one thing clear. This indie outing makes any random Shaw Brothers film look like a massive Hollywood production. The film is cheaply made and it shows in sets, in locations, in cinematography, and in acting. It's as if they did not even have time to rehearse the actors properly, and a lot of the film seems to have been improvised on the spot. It's not like the actors are bad, I have seen nearly all of them perform quite adequately in other films, so it's got to be the budget.

I'm the guy in the goofy mask, so I give the orders	Don't laugh at my righteous blade

Or the director. I know that I said Pao Hsueh Li was not totally incompetent when I reviewed another dud of his, Night of the Assassins, which also somehow managed to star enough recognizable faces to make one wonder just how the staff succeeded in concocting that bland porridge. In Pao's defense I referred to other films he had made with slightly higher budgets, but now I am beginning to doubt my judgment. There is nothing in this film that really needed lots of money for the sets or special effects, and yet somehow it all looks incredibly cheap and unprofessional. The film even has five or six action choreographers and yet the fights are boring, the martial arts unimaginative, and the wire fu, well, swinging. Nothing to get excited about.

Ko Keung is intense	Gratuitous shot of Nora Miao

The story is utterly confusing and non-gripping. Despite the spoiler title, it does not really become clear just who is wreaking bloody vengeance upon whom until the very end when for the benefit of the baffled audience and the no more enlightened actors everything is explained by the main villain. Even after that particularly elaborate oration I had no clue about who some of the characters were supposed to be. For example, I have no idea who Shih Szu was supposed to be playing. What was her relation to the rest of the cast? Why did she even get involved in the whole scheme? (The whole scheme, by the way, is another one of those seemingly inexhaustible variations on "I want to take over the martial arts world" plot that is used with such enthusiasm you'd think it's one of the 10 basic plots Shakespeare identified.)

Obligatory shot of Shih Szu	We're two wild and loony dudes

To the best of my knowledge (and mind you, I had to watch this film in two sittings since I fell asleep the first time somewhere in the middle), here's a rough idea of what goes on. I would not worry much about spoilers because knowing the story is not going to help you make heads or tails of this utter nonsense. Chang Chow (Ko Keung, and I have to say that all the names of characters are transliterations of what they sounded like in the English dub, so they should not be taken at face value) is a guy with a small... knife. To compensate for its size, the knife is made of jade. Or something. But it's not metal. It does cut through metal though. He shows up for a knife contest organized by some one-armed guy whose entire entourage wears masks (he does too, of course). Shu Wen (Shih Szu) shows up at the contest dressed as a man. I guess these pre-women's lib types were too backward to allow girls to knife guys or other girls, which we in our enlightened society have absolutely no problem with.

Chinese rappelling	Surrender! We have you surrounded by lanterns

As I said, I do not know why she's there and it will never become clear. But she's dressed as a man, which in these movies is enough for everyone to believe that she is one. Putting aside the obvious fact that Shih Szu looks nothing like a man (or else I am gay), she drops out of the picture until the next time she would pop in with some vague explanation of her purpose. But Chang at least tells the guy in the mask that he does not know how to throw a party. That does get said guy riled up, some lame fighting ensues, and the whole meeting them adjourns with Chang being proclaimed the victor in the knife contest even though the sparring with the masked guy was extracurricular and even though Chang actually lost to him. This would make one suspect foul play worthy of the Olympic Committee but we forgive Chang because his small knife is faster than his brain.

Cannot resist some more Shih Szu shots	What return to nature should be like

In return for losing to the masked guy, Chang agrees to look for that guy's sworn nemesis, some disfigured cripple who is also blind and deaf. How a man who cannot see or hear anything can be a threat to anyone but a city that has not provided ramps for people with disabilities is never made clear although there is some portentous "do not judge a book by its cover" pseudo-explanation. Of course, with a blind/deaf guy, the book is more like one without pages, but we'll let it slide. So Chang is going to look for this guy while simultaneously looking for the guy he was looking for when he came to look for the guy who organized the knife contest. And while all this looking is going on, a bunch of people will be looking for Chang because of the knife-technique manual he "won" at the contest. So I lot of looking is happening while the audience is also looking for some meaning in the convoluted plot or, barring that, the way out.

That's where the wild goose went	Who are these maidens?

Some thugs attempt to deprive Chang of the manual which he never reads but for some reason cannot part with either. Then there's the really intense Mei Han Tien (Han Yu) who has the most embarrassing scenes in the entire film (check out the one where he tries to deny he's not Mei by laughing so convincingly than a blind/deaf jury would convict him). What his role will not become clear until much later in the film but he's very intense and he does not like Chang. Chang, for his part, does not seem to dislike anybody although he's quite prepared to fight everyone. However, every time he gets to swing his little knife, some girl comes to his rescue. Usually it's Shih Szu's girl-who-does-not-look-like-a-man-although-everyone-thinks-she-is-one character, but at other times it's Nora Miao who really should have known better than to show up in this film. She also plays the flute. I don't know why I had to say it. It does not matter.

Han Yu is perpetually tense	Do you want this skewered, minced, or sliced?

Lots and lots of fighting, explanations, and bizarre twists later, we find out that it's all about some sick love-rectangle that happened ten years ago (although I have to say the guys who were supposedly just born back then look more like 25 years old). Without naming names (how else would you be forced to stick it out to the bitter end), a woman (Chu Lai) fell in love with a man (Chang Yi Tao) who happened to be married (to Wang Lai). She got secretly engaged and pregnant by him but married another man (Hong Wai). She had the baby but her husband did not like the idea of being cuckolded, so he devised a brutal plan. He had his rival's entire family killed although it appears he was somewhat delinquent in his efforts: the guy survived (blind/deaf but alive), and so did his wife, and so did his son. At least the bad guy sicced his own son on that unfortunate family although his son had no idea he was being set up.

No abuse in this prison	First maim, then ask questions

During all of this, the unfaithful wife (who looks to be no more than 20 years old) was kept under lock and key only to be killed along with the other wife right at the end. It turns out Nora Miao may have been that wife's attendant, but I cannot be sure. Shih Szu is referred to as 'princess' on occasion but her role remains a complete mystery. Anyway, the conspiracy falls apart when Chang and Mei actually talk for a second or two between trying to hit each other in the groin, after which they collectively try to hit the bad guy in his groin. This is foiled because the bad guy has an iron hand (so he's not really one-armed), but this is not enough to save him when all the good guys and girls set upon him in the long honored tradition of many against one being no disgrace when done in the service of Good.

Gratuitous shot of Chu Lai	I'm an Iron Maaaaaan! (Okay, just Iron Arm)

A truly stupid and uninspired film presented in an off-putting transfer that is shaky, muddy, blurry, with colors tending to a greenish cast, and with dubbing that would put a catatonic into a comma. Despite Shih Szu's presence (and she does get to flex a muscle or two in a couple of scenes), there is not anything to recommend this film. Even Shih Szu can't save it, by the way, because in spite of her formidable skills she is reduced to following the male protagonist like a love-sick puppy, spouting off romantic nonsense and batting eyelids bashfully right after saving his small-knifed ass from the next bunch of thugs. Nora Miao at least does not get to deliver inane love confessions but her scenes are even fewer. I only wanted to see this film because of Shih Szu, I admit. But I regret wasting my time. As I said before, the Venom Mob DVD is atrocious: the video is cropped (although there is a bit of pretty lame panning), so a lot of the action takes place off-screen now. Dubbed in stultifying English to boot. Avoid.

January 15, 2005