Yuan yang jian xia

Following the great Temple of the Red Lotus, the sequel comes into its own, albeit there are some key changes in tone to different ends. Twin Swords is very much a serial continuation of the first, picking off right at the end of the first film. This is a more crowd-pleasing element here, a more barebones plot and more simple motivations; gone are all the interpersonal familial politics; there's a kidnap, rescue, and tons of sword fights. However there is no doubt with the Shaw Brothers production it is still elevating what is on screen. Though the film proves to be lighter on drama and makes Red Lotus feel like a soap opera by comparison, I missed the searing gravitas and operatic storytelling from part one, its powerful family dynamics and performances. That is a great film outright. But this one is a fun one, it gives you more along the lines of what you hope to see in the series. My favorite shot is the characters flying around on the rescue mission against these classical fantasy sets. It's a slice of movie heaven. It is not as good as a film in my view, but it is more action-packed, and you love the characters, the tough as nails Grandma is of course a staple in asian cinema, but here in its funniest bit, even the little girl is a sword fighting ninja too leading to some gore. The series is underrated and the trilogy has been entirely ignored in physical media warranting a release.

TWIN SWORDS (1965) is an elaborate studio production that boasts great color, beautiful sets & costumes, and a non-stop music/narrative song soundtrack. This was the Shaw Bros. studio style of the early 1960s before things got darker and more intense with ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967), which also starred Jimmy Wang Yu and propelled him into martial arts stardom. TWIN SWORDS starts right in the middle of the action--a sword fight in which Lien Chu (Chin Ping) and Kwei Wu (Jimmy Wang Yu) fight off hordes of bandits led by familiar actors from early Shaw Bros. films. The film is a sequel to TEMPLE OF THE RED LOTUS (also 1965) and was followed by another sequel, THE SWORD AND THE LUTE (1966).

The basic plot line finds the two young leads in the process of eloping when they are interrupted by cries for help from four young women being kidnapped. They try to rescue the women from the Red Lotus Temple, which is installed with elaborate traps by bandits disguised as monks. Lien gets trapped and Wang Yu escapes to go plead with Lien's family, the Kans, for help. In this highly melodramatic section of the film, the family is scornful and doesn't trust him. Lien's former suitor, played by Lo Lieh, volunteers to go investigate and makes an ill-fated rescue attempt, prompting the Kans to finally step in.

It's Grandma who calls the shots here and the entire family goes, including Lien's mother and aunts, all beautifully dressed. Dad (Tien Feng) gives the family heirloom, an iron-chopping sword, to his youngest daughter, Little Ling, who later uses the sword, to lethal effect, on a hapless guard. Most of the family members have perfect aim and the ability to leap up walls and balconies, often in unison! To make a long story short, they all go to the Red Lotus Temple and put up a series of fights. An older swordswoman, Scarlet Maid (Ivy Ling Po, one of the top female Shaw Bros. stars of the time), joins in to help them out.

The film is notable for its rich, lavish, brightly-colored studio look, a characteristic of the Shaw Bros. studio costume films of the time (1960s). Several scenes have background choral songs that provide a narrative accompaniment. The film was directed by Sui Jang Hung, although Chang Cheh, later the studio's top kung fu director, is credited with Production Design. The fight scenes feature lots of acrobatics and high leaping (or 'vaulting'). The heroes win fights quite easily. Wang Yu fights, but doesn't employ the brutal moves, both swordplay and kung fu, that he'd develop in his later films, relying here on more of a slashing sword style that represents a transitional moment in the studio's methods of fight choreography. He overacts well, however, pleading and crying very convincingly. I can see why he wanted to play tougher guys in his later films.

In the Tai Seng VHS edition, in Mandarin with English subtitles, the subtitles sometimes dip off the screen during the first hour. The full-frame transfer cuts off the subtitles on the sides anyway, making only the middle of each line visible. But until a letter-boxed DVD becomes available, this is the only way to see a film which remains one of the best early examples of Hong Kong's 'wuxia pian' genre, the type of stylized swordplay film that director Ang Lee sought to recall, in his own fashion, with CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000).

ADDENDUM: (9/25/07) Six years after I wrote the above review, a remastered letter-boxed DVD edition of TWIN SWORDS has indeed finally come out, courtesy of Celestial Pictures' line of restored Shaw Bros. classics. I'd picked up the sequel, THE SWORD AND THE LUTE, a year ago, but waited till after I'd gotten the new edition of TWIN SWORDS and watched it again before watching the sequel, which I've now also reviewed for IMDb and which is found only under its Chinese title, HUO SHAO HONG LIAN SI ZHI QIN JIAN EN CHOU. So now all three films in the trilogy, which began with TEMPLE OF THE RED LOTUS, are available on Region 3 DVD from Celestial. The DVD of TWIN SWORDS contains its original four-minute trailer, which asserts that it's based on a "famous Chinese classic," although I have yet to determine the literary source.

This film begins where its predecessor "Temple of the Red Lotus" left off with a young man by the name of "Kuei Wu" (Jimmy Wang Yu) and his bride "Kan Lien Chu" (Ping Chin) emerging from the temple after a hard fight and sheepishly heading back to her parent's home from where they had essentially eloped. On the way there, however, they happen to see several women being ambushed by bandits and decide to rescue them at the first favorable opportunity. Sure enough, they eventually find themselves right back where they started--but this time Kuei Wu barely escapes with his life while Kan Lien Chu is taken prisoner. That being said, being totally outnumbered, Kuei Wu hurries back to his in-laws to not only beg for their forgiveness but to also plead with them to help him rescue Kan Lien Chu. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I actually liked this sequel a bit more than the original film due in large part because the plot was a bit easier to fully understand. Admittedly, it still contains a number of preposterous fighting scenes in which several people easily set new world records in the high jump category as if that's quite normal. But those kinds of stunts were quite common for Chinese movies during that time. Be that as it may, although it isn't completely necessary, I would still recommend that the viewer watch the first movie prior to this one--if for no other reason than to have a better grasp on some of the intricate personal drama involved.

I was a little thrown at the start of this film as it jumps right into the middle of a fight sequence without a word and it took me a few minutes to look up that this film is a sequel and thus I was going to be at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of the story. This didn't last too long though because basically the plot see Xiaowu and Lianzhu (as my subtitles called them) eloping together when they find some women being captured. They set off to help but fall into a series of traps set by the Red Lotus Clan. Lianzhu is captured by Xiaowu returns home to seek help from the rest of the Gan family – which is just what the Red Lotus Clan were planning for.

As a plot it isn't too complicated once it gets moving and the story itself is mostly pretty good. The tone of the film is rather uneven though – good in some ways but odd in others. Firstly it must be said that the violence is quite tough at times, stagey perhaps but there is blood and quite cruel deaths throughout. The action isn't quite as well staged as I have seen, so this tough edge does help, even if the henchmen fall too easily and the film does lack a sense of danger in many of the scenes, still engaging but not as impacting as I would have liked. The actual telling of the story is rather melodramatic. This has the effect of slowing down the action a bit, but it does make it feel like a "proper" story as well. As a mix it doesn't really work even though bits of it do.

Those looking for cheesy genre laughs will be disappointed as this approach does mean there isn't much in the way of flamboyance or fun to be had. The cast are solid and are better at the melodrama than I had expected, with some good performances. The villains of the Red Lotus Clan provide some color but sadly do not have as much time as I would have liked.

Overall the film doesn't quite do it for me in any one way but is good enough as a whole to be worth a look. The blood and tough edge is good, while the melodrama provides structure – it is just the mix of them that makes the film a bit uneven and at times it is hard not to wish it had been darker or lighter just to move it away from the middle ground.