A Espada Mágica

Moody, well-lit kung fu saga as two mortal enemies are pursued by the legions of killers hired by the mysterious Mr. Yu. I saw this on television a long time ago and was not impressed. The new release, subtitled, is a joy to watch. The whole production is very unrealistic but that is not a distraction. We are in a fantasy world where swords can cut branches off of trees from a distance just by being spun in place really fast. The film is very unlike the usual Shaw Bros. films everyone is familiar with except during the fight scenes which are up to the Shaw Bros. high standards.

Recommended. It's a change of pace from your typical kung-fu film. Just remember, don't eat anything Devil Granny serves you.

Contains cannibalism, exploding peacock feathers, ninjas who turn into trees, people getting chopped in half and blown up, crater-sized plot holes, nonsense proverbs, and a scene where one guy escapes death by having practiced for 20 years to move his sinuses by an inch. It's an absolutely stupid movie that makes Master of the Flying Guillotine feel underwhelming.

But at the same time, there's a sophistication to its dreamlike, fantasy feel in that it roots the martial arts/wuxia thing firmly in the enduring realm of myth and legend. There are twists and role reversals that make no sense other than to drive home the moral of the film, unlikely dialogue motifs, and some of the sets border on scenery porn. It's like watching a proverb play out.

The prolific Chor Yuen (Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972)) whose work covers many genres was an important director with The Shaw Brothers, but today his oeuvre is known less than Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung. The genre that I am most familiar with from his films are the wuxia adaptations from the Gu Long novels including this one which was taken from (the Chinese title of the film is the same as the novel). While his direction was usually fine he had a habit to trying to fit in an overabundance of plot turns and characters that can be typical in adaptations of literature. I felt this was a hindrance to many of his directed films such as Bat Without Wings (1980), but in this movie it worked quite well. So far, and I have many more films that I would like to see of his with most not available on R1, this is easily my favorite movie directed by Yuen.

The Magic Blade is a consummate wuxia adaptation in the jianghu universe (literally means lakes and rivers but has come to mean the fictional world these fighters inhabit). The best wuxia films have hearty heroes, sundry and plentiful villains, diverse powerful weaponry and a complicated plot that I will eschew discussing too much about in this review. This film has all of that. We start with the solemn hero with an absolute code of ethics bemoaning a lost love because of his quest in becoming the number one martial artist. Who better to play this than the stoic Ti Lung as Fu Hung-hsueh? He resembles Client Eastwood in the Sergio Leone's The Man With No Name trilogy in attire while his character is much more chivalrous. Every wuxia warrior must have a sublime and deadly weapon and Fu has his unique titular sword in tow. It is a blade that can swivel like a tonfa and looks like it would work well in mowing down your lawn as well as your enemies.

To be number 1 in the jianghu universe it helps to have spent years dedicated to becoming the best swordsman possible. It also helps to obtain a weapon that is so incredibly powerful that it can be used against those swordsmen who have wasted years learning their art to be number 1. What is a sword compared to the powerful Peacock Dart which can kill everything in range except your own fighters? How the device knows that I am not sure but I liked it much more than the spider weapon in another Chor Yuen film The Web of Death (1976). It does have another issue where it can only be used a few times, but we will ignore that as well. The Peacock Dart has been safely hidden away for many years at Peacock Mansion but a rising antagonist the mysterious Master Yu wants to obtain this magnificent weapon. Fu is entrusted with this weapon as it is no longer safe at the Peacock Mansion, but that now makes him an even bigger target than before. Will Fu survive the onslaught to finally face Master Yu (whoever he/she is)?

There is so much to like in this film. Tang Chia's (Shaolin Intruders (1983)) and Wong Pau-gei's fight choreography is excellent. While each fight tends to be short (Dr. Craig D. Reid notes that there are 22 fights for a total of 14 minutes and 8 seconds of action in his fun compendium The Ultimate Guide to Martial Arts Movies of the 1970s) the variety of weapons and situations employed are awesome. One of my favorite fight scenes is the human Chinese chess game where Fu gets caught up in the schemes of mini-mastermind Ku Wu-chi. The characters, especially the bad guys, are diverse, plentiful and quite memorable. My favorite is Devil's Grandma (Teresa Ha Ping who has been in at least 243 films) a cackling elder, who has a penchant for human pork buns, can do complex martial arts and would probably poison her son. But there are many other characters from bad guys who would rather play chess, an effeminate swordsman, a sympathetic Lo Lieh character (or is he) and countless others who will be introduced and then dispatched with quick efficiency by the hero (for example: here's a bad guy who gets a Chinese title on the screen, you think he must figure prominent in the story, wait now he is dead, never mind). The story while somewhat complicated but not overly complex like Chor Yuen's The Duel of the Century (1981) is full of plot turns and interesting scenarios with my favorite being the town of the dead (Yuen would repeat this scene in Bat Without Wings).

I easily recommend this to fans of wuxia. I am not sure how well others take to this because there is a fantasy element to these films that some people have trouble connecting to (not sure why when there are so many sci-fi and comic book hero films that skew reality) and the plot is one you do have to pay attention to and a second viewing does help. But this is a brilliant and fun film. The cinematography by Wong Chit is beautiful (he had already been working 20 years), the sets are ethereal and beautifully crafted and the fights, scenes, characters mentioned earlier help form one of my favorite Shaw Brother's films. Now taste my thunder bullets.

The movie has a sequel named Pursuit of Vengeance (1977: Chor Yuen).

THE MAGIC BLADE has a great premise, and I really enjoyed the concept of a super weapon forcing these two rival swordsmen to actually work together to save the world. It is by far the most suspenseful and spooky Shaw Bros. thriller I've seen up to date. The Devil Grandma character is definitely the sickest individual of them all, and is the most memorable takeaways from this film.

Fu Hung-Hsieh's revolving underhand sword is also really fun to watch. However, the character is definitely a Mary Sue. He seems to have the answer or know the answer ahead of time to most of the events that occur throughout the story. It almost makes me want to see how he was when he was younger before he got so much great knowledge. I would have at least preferred if the other characters at least began to wise up and defer to him before they engaged someone or an activity.

The story gets weaker as the film carries on. There are so many enemies, some of them introduced in cool ways, but the film felt a need to prolong their involvements only so they could be easily cut away later, and unfortunately the twist ending makes the whole story even worse.

The film also doesn't age very well as many of the stunts are poorly performed or edited, really highlighting the lack of technology during the era. I can excuse a lot, as I've rated other Shaw Bros. films 10/10, but I didn't see as best of an effort for special effects in this one. This is a film that could actually benefit from a modern remake.

THE MAGIC BLADE (1976) is a Hong Kong swordplay film from the famed Shaw Bros. studio done in a stylized fashion that has less in common with the studio's kung fu films of the era but recalls instead the more fanciful "wuxia" swordplay adventures of the mid-1960s (TEMPLE OF THE RED LOTUS, TWIN SWORDS). Director Chu Yuan (aka Chor Yuen) takes a simple framework and, with the help of lavish sets, elegant costumes, a top-notch cast and imaginative fight choreography, creates a heroic saga in the grand style that wears its literary origins proudly.

Ti Lung, always a charismatic martial arts performer, plays Fu Hung-Hsueh, a super-swordsman who wears a long poncho (a la Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name") and keeps his special broad sword, with a revolving handle, in a sheath underneath. He is out to kill a competing swordsman, Yen Nan-Fei (played by Lo Lieh, of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH), but winds up partnering with him to fend off attempts by the powerful Lord Yu to have them both killed to insure Yu's control of the martial world. Much of the conflict centers around attempts to get hold of the almost mystically powerful "Peacock Dart" weapon which is entrusted to Fu by its owner, Chiu (Ching Miao), who entrusts his daughter, Yu-cheng (Ching Li, Ching Miao's real-life daughter), to Fu as well. Along the way, teams of killers attack on a regular basis, leaving the heroes (and heroine) little time to do anything but fight, let alone eat or sleep. The action culminates in a massive confrontation at Yu's island stronghold, where Fu has to take on Yu's team of specially skilled assassins.

All the confrontations are stage managed by the villains as dramatic tableaux, arranged on sprawling Shaw Bros. studio sets (with one fight filmed in an outdoor forest). At a roadside restaurant, Fu notes that the motionless customers and staff, frozen as if in mid-meal, are all dead and proceeds to draw out the killers hiding among them. Later, the heroes confront the malevolent "Devil Grandma" (Ha Ping) and Ku Wu Chi (Norman Chu), one of Yu's "Five Fighters," who directs his soldiers to create a giant, life-sized chess board on which to oppose the heroes, who must face such living pieces as "Cannon," "Horse" and "Chariot."

Director Yuan, working from a book by Ku Lung, as he did the same year with KILLER CLANS (and many subsequent films), opts for a slightly fantastic aura with characters who can make the requisite high leaps and acrobatic flips expected of Hong Kong swordplay heroes and also wield a host of exotic weapons in settings of exquisite décor and lush lighting. The theatrical tone of the film eschews the grittier, hard-edged martial arts violence of Chang Cheh's and Lau Kar Leung's kung fu films of the era (SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS, THE MASTER KILLER) and instead draws on the stylized swordplay adventures of the 1960s, most notably those directed by King Hu (COME DRINK WITH ME, DRAGON GATE INN, A TOUCH OF ZEN). However, director Yuan exercises greater control of his goings-on, keeping 90% of the film in the studio and avoiding some of the awkward shifts in tone that occasionally marred Hu's work. Yuan masters the theatricality, while incorporating frequent swordfights (seamlessly choreographed by Tang Chia) and keeping track of a large number of elusive characters. A case can be made that Yuan's style looks forward to the more exaggerated effects employed by producer-director Tsui Hark in the Hong Kong New Wave of the 1980s and early 1990s (A Chinese GHOST STORY, SWORDSMAN II, THE EAST IS RED, etc.).

The cast of THE MAGIC BLADE features some well-loved Shaw Bros. regulars, including kung fu diva Lily Li, up-and-coming villain Norman Chu, portly Fan Mei-Sheng, and the always dependable Ku Feng. Ching Li makes a lovely and sturdy heroine. Another striking actress, Tien Ni, appears as the enigmatic beauty, Ming Yueh Hsin, who manipulates the heroes at several points along the way. With an enticing smile, high cheekbones and slightly sleepy eyes, she casts an elegantly sexy image that is hard for the heroes (or the audience, for that matter) to resist. Finally, the two fighting stars, Ti Lung and Lo Lieh, are both in fine form here in roles that are changes of pace for both of them. One wishes their characters and relationship had been developed more, as would have been the case in a Chang Cheh film, but then it would have been a very different kind of film.