Le retour de l'hirondelle d'or

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.

THE GIRL WITH THE THUNDERBOLT KICK (aka GOLDEN SWALLOW, 1968) is a Shaw Bros. costume swordplay drama notable for co-starring the studio's top male action star, Jimmy Wang Yu, with the studio's then-reigning swashbuckling diva Cheng Pei Pei (THE THUNDERING SWORD). Wang Yu plays the notorious killer Silver Roc and Cheng plays his childhood sweetheart Golden Swallow, whom he hasn't seen in years (a reprise of a character the same actress played in King Hu's COME DRINK WITH ME, 1966). Golden Swallow follows Roc's trail of blood and is accompanied by Golden Whip Hand (Lo Lieh), who is in love with her but helps her track down Silver Roc. Midway through the film they all meet, but Silver Roc quickly challenges Whip Hand to a duel after the latter condemns Roc for an earlier instance of cold-blooded killing. That's pretty much the whole plot and it takes a long time getting to the final duel.

There are plenty of swordfights here, but they're fairly stylized, with lots of leaping around, twirling of swords, soft blows, and unconvincing fighting skills. Cheng Pei Pei has great screen presence, but she's more of a dancer than a fighter. There's an undertone of unrequited love that's rather poignant at times. Following this film Wang Yu turned to a harder-edged brand of martial arts film with THE CHINESE BOXER (1970), generally considered the first pure kung fu film.

ADDENDUM (12/24/18): Watching this film again on the Dragon Dynasty DVD, in Mandarin with English subs. and the original music score, makes a world of difference. It's a beautiful film, a sweeping love story, with action scenes a dramatic by-product, and great performances by all concerned, especially the three leads. I was also struck by the breathtaking cinematography by Pao Hsueh Li, shot on both lavish studio sets and picturesque mountain locations. I regret that the above review wasn't as enthusiastic, but it was based on watching a pan-and-scan Cantonese language VHS tape with plastered-on music cues from a James Bond soundtrack.

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.

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.

This is the seventh film from Chang Cheh. Still finding his style, here Cheh is clearly influenced by concurrent chambara films from Japan. While there are a number of signature Cheh style scenes in this film, there many scenes that are very experimental for him especially the opening fight that's cropped in unique ways. The photography is very good, especially the outdoor shots and the composition is better then in many of his later films.

While titled, "Golden Swallow", as others have noted, it really should be called "Silver Roc" or "Iron Whip vs. Flying Swords" or something like that. The character Golden Swallow is in the film but director Cheh is more interested in the disturbed swordsman played by Wang Yu. He gets to kill scores of bad guys in numerous extended scenes while the title character is involved in four short fights at the most.

Is the film good? Well it is entertaining for the most part if a bit gory (with lots of bright red paint). The martial arts are good but many fights scenes are shot with a shaky hand-held camera much like many Japanese movies from the same time. It's effective but muddies up the choreography if that's what you're looking for. The signature zoom lens Shaw style camera work doesn't really get going until the mid seventies. Shaw director Liu Chia Liang can be seen for a second or two as a villainous swordsman.