Xue ling jian nu

First a clarification is mandatory. This is not the Shaw Brothers movie of a very similar title. The information and pictures here on IMDB are accurate but it is very easy to confuse the two. I think the voice over people doing the English dub on this film confused the two movies also. A woman wants to leave her husband even though she is pregnant because she can't take his cheating. After a quick swordfight she gets her freedom. Next scene she has already given birth and is attended to by a chubby bucktooth woman. She dies after naming her husband and accusing him as the reason for all her problems. Bucktooth is proficient in darts, raises the girl and teaches her martial arts. In her coming of age scene she kills a gang of rapists. She learns the truth from her teacher using "In Vino Veritus". The English voice overs in this movie are unreliable and create confusion about what is happening and why. First there is the matter of the daughter's revenge. The father did not want the mother to leave and would have continued to provide for the child despite his cheating. That is far short of motivation for killing your father. The rest of the mess comes from characters seeming to have information they never could have known. Overall I rate this as an average film for the year and genre. The fights are few and so-so but the pace is good and the characters interesting.

Opening with a brief scuffle between a lady and her abusive husband, we quickly jump to find the mother of Mo Ka Kei, who awakens in a cave, saved by the ugly snow woman (no really, that is her name). She has just given birth to Mo, then dies soon after revealing to the ugly woman of her predicament. I don't even think she had taken her last breath, when the ugly snow woman walks away stating that 'men are such bastards!' before throwing some blades into her cave wall...

We jump many years ahead to find out that the ugly snow woman is actually a kung fu master, teaching (the now 10 year old) Mo Ka Kei how to throw darts and fight, all while being a mother figure to her. Minutes later, we jump ahead another 6 or 7 years to find Mo Ka Kei as a beautiful teenager - pissed off that ugly snow woman doesn't know who her real parents are. After a slight breakdown and getting ugly snow woman drunk, she spills the beans!

A Daughters Revenge is everything it says it is in the title. With terrible English dubbing and VHS picture quality, its hard to think early-on that the film is going to be anything special. It clearly suffers from a cropped picture, losing some of the wider cinematography the director had initially captured. Obviously, cleaned-up and restored, this would look a much more attractive and impressive film. But for a 1970 production - and watching it 50 years on - its most definitely not terrible.

Taiwanese star Zhen Zhen is quite beautiful, and makes the most of her swordplay and action scenes. Director Chou Hsu Chiang would be more recognised for his films such as the Shaw Brothers classic, The Bride From Hell, and The Enchanting Ghost (both available in a beautiful print by 88 Films), and makes the film survive by keeping a good pace and presenting enough interesting characters, that makes this pretty average swordplay melodrama, watchable.

While the swordplay and fights aren't amazing, they still work and are to be as expected from that era. Action choreographer Bai Ying has a great filmography himself, starring in films such as the classic Hapkido, Dragon From Russia, A Fistful Of Talons, 36 Shaolin Beads, and many more! A Daughters Vengeance is his only credited title as fight choreographer...

Overall: Far from a classic, but has enough going on to keep you focused!