Das Tödliche Duo

Reviewed and complained about The Man with the Iron Fists a couple of nights ago, and thought that throwback martial arts movie could have been good even with a muddled storyline if it had just had neat action and no distractingly bad digital effects.

Golden Swallow feels like that hypothetical martial arts movie with a messy narrative yet still delivering on the action and martial arts movie charms. Of course, it's not a throwback, and was made at a time when the martial arts genre in Hong Kong was thriving, but it still goes to show that an action movie like this can work simply by having good... well, action.

It feels like there's almost more time spent on action scenes than there is time spent on non-action scenes. I'm a sucker for any martial arts sequences, but ones where one person fights through a dozen or more other people with ease I'm particularly a sucker for, and there's some stuff like that here.

The melodramatic romance is a bit underwhelming, and the story is all over the place, but the fighting is exciting and fun, and that's the most important thing. Great fighting and a good story might make a martial arts movie great, which isn't the case here... but the movie's at least good, thanks to it having frequent and entertaining fights.

Kung-fu at its innovative best and one of the finest the genre has to offer. The Shaw Brothers produced "Golden Swallow" mixes a melancholy romance with violent martial arts caught by its handsomely earthy direction and inventively novel camera placement during the excitingly expansive set-pieces. The dazzling imagery in some sequences is marvellously projected, like the vigorous fighting craftsmanship in the woods and the vivid colour plateau accompanying it. The arresting sword fights are quick, ruthless and meticulous without a drop of sweat being spilt… however blood is plentiful in its many awesome showdowns! The story's groundwork is quite simple, but well-told with its ominous edge and suitably paced… even though I did find some of the editing in between sequences to be rather jumpy. The score is kinetic, but elegantly impulsive. There are illustratively able performances from the likes of Pei-pei Cheng (who provides one strong character), Yu Wang, Lieh Lo, Hsin Yen Chao and Chia-Liang Liu. Wang is quite memorable as the unstoppably cold-blooded warrior Silver Roc that really has a bone to pick, while in the quest to find his true love.

This film is a perfect example of why Cheng Pei-pei's characterizations were years ahead of their time. She was a truly independant and strong female role model without sacrificing any femininity. The closest contemporary I can think of would be Michelle Yeoh, yet Cheng did it back in the day and in some ways paved the way for stars like Yeoh.

There is a scene in this film which illustrates this point well. Cheng's character, Golden Swallow, is hurrying to save her friend's from killing each other but she's dragging another female character with her. The other woman does the cliche twist-the-ankle-while-running-and-look-pitiful move we have seen in in every cheesy chase scene. Cheng turns to her and gives her a look that says "What is WRONG WITH YOU? Why are you so helpless?! Get up and RUN!" before she practically drags her to her feet.

I first saw this movie when I was 16 years old back in the 1970's during the kung fu craze. Our local cinema in Swindon showed a Kung Fu movie every Sunday and me and my mates used to go down and sneak in the back door and watch the latest flick.

I remember this movies as "Girl with the thunderbolt kick", but that's a terrible title as she doesn't have much of a kick, and most of the film centers around the male lead rather than "Golden Swallow".

Nevertheless the film is truly magnificent, with wonderful panoramic shots, excellent fight sequences and a story that is easy to follow.

After searching high and low for the film years ago, I gave up, but luckily for me Celestrial Pictures purchased the whole of the Shaw Brothers Back catalogue and has now started to release these great Kung Fu movies that were thought gone for ever. A search on Ebay discovered "Golden Swallow" was available, and a week later I am watching a fully restored, digitally enhanced DVD with a crystal clear 1:235 widescreen classic.

The quality looks like it was filmed in the last couple of years, not the mid 1960's.

Grab yourself a copy, get a beer out of the fridge, sit back and have 100 great minutes of entertainment.

Nominally a sequel to "Come Drink with Me," this film does bring back Cheng Pei-pei as the title swordswoman Golden Swallow...but, aside from that, it bears little apparent resemblance to King Hu's 1966 classic. "Golden Swallow" was one of those learning-as-you-go films for Chang Cheh, who went on to become the elder statesman of Hong Kong martial arts cinema. Chang hadn't quite realized his vision, but was finding his way.

Wang Yu plays a thoroughly unlikable antihero, Silver Roc, who's out for revenge against the murderer of his parents. (Or his teacher. Or something.) Golden Swallow and another woman are in love with Silver Roc; an upstanding warrior called Iron Whip (Lo Lieh) has the hots for Golden Swallow, but can see that he's losing out to Silver Roc. Yang Chih-ching (Wang Yu's nemesis from the previous year's hit "The One-Armed Swordsman") portrays the lead villain, Poison Dragon. With smoother choreography, the limitations of the dreary soap opera-style plot might have been easier to overlook, but the scenes of combat prove unsatisfactory. There are lots of fights, certainly, but they're awkwardly choreographed and filmed. Chang Cheh knew that he wanted to create long, bloody fight scenes with a lone hero facing virtually impossible odds, and from here on out he began to fine-tune his approach. Beginning with "The Return of the One-Armed Swordsman" (1969), the fights got better and better.

"Golden Swallow" was filmed in Japan, and the film's gorgeous outdoor photography may be its strongest feature. It's a necessary step in the development of Chang Cheh's directorial style, but will be of interest primarily to Wang Yu/Shaw Brothers completists.