Rezension von BrianDanaCamp

VENGEANCE IS A GOLDEN BLADE (1969) is that rare Shaw Bros. swordplay movie that is centered around a father-daughter relationship. The girl has grown up in the mountains with her father, a crippled hero who has spent the last 17 years perfecting a blade that will successfully counter the Golden Blade that had been stolen from him in an ambush by the Vicious Brothers of Long, with whom his wife has taken up and who's now running a brothel. The father and daughter live with an herbalist and his grandson, the likely future mate for the girl, Xiaoyan. When Xiaoyan is full grown she is reunited, quite by chance, with the mother she hasn't seen since she was a toddler. During a visit with her mother at the brothel, Xiaoyan is enticed by the nice clothing, jewelry and fine things her mother promises her. Eventually she has to make a choice between the two parents.

It's a compelling story made more so by three fine actors in the lead roles. Chin Ping, who did so well in the "Temple of the Red Lotus" trilogy (also reviewed on this site), plays Xiaoyan with the right mix of simplicity, vulnerability, girlishness, martial arts expertise, and curiosity about the larger world. Chin Ping wasn't the greatest fighting femme at Shaw at the time (that would be Cheng Pei Pei), but she knows how to play the emotional scenes with her parents very well. The actor who plays the father, Tang Ching, was a really strong actor in his Shaw films and here plays a seriously injured, humiliated man who has not given up, who lives for his daughter but has difficulty releasing his hold on her and letting her out into the cruel world. Kao Pao Shu plays the mother and is the most emotionally in control. When she's reunited with her daughter and wants her back, it's hard to tell whether it's out of a lingering maternal love, a desire to use her to make money at the brothel (she does say to her, "We can make a lot of money together"), or simply to save the girl the grief of witnessing the death of her father should the Vicious Brothers finally track him down. It actually makes for a better performance and more interesting character when we don't know for sure what's going on in her head.

The martial arts take a back seat to the dramatics, which is okay for a film like this where the relationships are so interesting. There are plenty of fight scenes but they're not the best we've seen from Shaw Bros. Yueh Hua, as the herbalist's grandson, has a few fight scenes but is generally a subsidiary character throughout.

My only major quibble with the film is the big buildup given the new sword that the father is making and the long, frustrating wait we have to endure for it to finally be introduced into the action and then only at the very end. For this to have been a martial arts classic we needed a little more. As it stands, it's a good drama with action scenes and is highly recommended.