Killer Constable

During the late Ching Dynasty, the imperial treasury is robbed, and the Empress's senior minister sends a dogged, pitiless constable (Chen Kuan-tai) to apprehend the thieves. As he encounters everywhere the suffering of the common people, and as his men die one after another in the line of duty, the constable begins to lose faith in his mission...and in the imperial court itself.

"Killer Constable" has been floating around the home video market for decades, first on VHS and then on DVD, as "Lightning Kung Fu." That English-dubbed print is faded, blotched and scratchy, with the original title clumsily hacked off; it's a disgraceful state for any film to be in, but see it anyhow. It's that good. Director Kuei Chih-hung treats the subject matter with the gravity it deserves, and his artistry is evident despite the condition of the print. Chen Kuan-tai turns in a fine performance, as does veteran Shaw character actor Ku Feng (as one of the desperate thieves being pursued by the constable). Beautifully choreographed swordfights, too, the high point being the confrontation between Chen and Jason Pai Piao as a hired assassin.

I remember watching this movie as a kid and being quite impressed because I found it so bloody. I often remembered this movie and so I was really happy to find this now in a second hand video store after all those years. Of course I'm not that impressed nowadays - but it's still a very cool swordsplay-movie. I has a lot of great fights with some splatter pleasure like extremities being chopped off. Ohh, and it's no kung-fu- or karate-movie, don't know why they named it "Karate Exterminators" or "Lightning Kung Fu", maybe this was more popular at it's release-date. My german video-release is called "Der gnadenlose Vollstrecker" which is a title that totally fits. Really outstanding is the atmosphere. You have fights in pitch black, in the water and marsh, with fire and so on. And there is a lot of rain. You know, rainy, dark atmosphere, desperate and already injured heroes with long wet hair in the face standing counterpart ready to die. - Cool! And the hero is no real hero because he's a total cold-hearted, bougeois executioner. But there's some development with his character during the story which is quite realistic. And the end is very surprising and radical. So, the movie-makers are not just martial-arts- and swordsplay-professionals, they also knew how to develop a storyline and built some great atmosphere. For me this movie is a hidden treasure of all those kung-fu and swordsplay-movies of the 70ies & 80ies. 7 out of 10.

If you are a kung fu movie fan you can invite your Hollywood movie fan friends over to watch Killer Constable. Tell them it's an action movie that actually has a plot and a dark disturbing emotional impact. Yes, you could even watch this movie with your mom!

I like to analyze plot structure and almost all kung fu movies fall into four plots. 1) Revenge or "You killed my master" 2) The Karate Kid or doofus learns martial arts 3) The fighter who has sworn never to use violence again but is finally forced into it and 4) Martial artists from everywhere come to the tournament which is far more than just that. This actually adds a plot I haven't seen before in this genre. It's the good guy crosses the line plot. If you've ever watched an episode of Highlander the TV series this was a favorite plot there. The protagonist's character progression is amazing and unlike Western plot structure. He starts out as a jerk, then there is hope for him, yet he continues to be a jerk. Then you are cheering for him at the end because sometimes the world needs a jerk to kill the real villain.

The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the fights at the beginning. They are filmed in the dark and you can't see what's happening. With Kuan Tai Chen we need to see everything because he is the real deal. Fortunately the rest of the fights were showcases of his true skill level. Make this one an 8.0 for me. A note to all old school kung fu movie fans. I highly recommend Kuan Tai Chen's latest - "The Gallants" and rate that one an 8.0 also.

At times you get positively surprised, when you look forward to a film and expect to see some quality work, and you get what you seek out but in a very different way than you thought, and possibly even more. This was the case when I popped Killer Constable into my DVD player and got way more than your regular Shaw Kung Fu hour-and-a-half epistle.

Compared to other Shaw Brother's period Wu Xia and Kung Fu works, Killer Constable differs from the lot quite a bit, and in a very positive way. Director Kuei Chih-hung's background in crime films really show, as he takes interesting elements from hard-boiled crime films and Japanese samurai films, among others, and bring them seamlessly into the Wu Xia movie.

It's more than rare in these films to see the protagonists being as a part of the Manchu dynasty's government. This is probably the main reason why we have such a dark character as the main protagonist. Chen Kuan-tai as the Killer Constable himself is a dark type of hero, bordering the anti-hero nearly all of the time. Along in his company of ever-vigilant law-officers, there's no place for your typical sleek-cheeked do-gooders in the posse, as we soon see, when this group of tough law officers go for their mission to capture and punish the bandit who's responsible for stealing a large sum of Emperor's gold. Also, a bit striking are some features you can see in the villains of the movie, some of them who have unusually humane characteristics, giving less stereotypical image of the characters than your usual black-and-white Good vs. Bad composition found in many of the genre pieces.

While always being a solid actor and great martial artist - one of my very favourite Shaw Bros. stars - Chen Kuan-Tai really shines in his role. He has the powerful presence and charisma as the stone faced law officer who discovers that he is only a tool and gets betrayed by the system he has abidingly served, that the role gets nearly immortalized.

Beautiful use of lighting and scenery, tight script, good balance of action and story, and especially interesting main character make this one the winner all the way. I also have to dish out some bonus points for the very bleak ending shot that somehow emphasized the futility of it all and concretely showed what kind of destruction greed, corruption and following orders without any questioning can lead you to. (This last one may very well be only my interpretation more than the message that was intendedly embedded in the film, but that's how I felt when the last images hit the screen.)

The blend of these elements make Killer Constable very atmospheric and exceptionally dark piece of martial arts mayhem, guaranteed to satisfy the genre fans and most probably being an interesting piece also for the people who are not familiar with the genre. Definitely one of my all-time Shaw favourites!

This is my truth. What is yours?

The introduction scene of our main character made me think: does this have a moral to it? Can the justice be served without any questions asked? Are all criminals evil and deserving of dying? And is our main character human or rather able of showing some emotions to that point? And the movie kind of touches upon those things. It is not too complex, but you can see things displayed and you can apply your moral code to this. There are characters and decisions that apply to your choices .. and of course there are others too.

Shaw Brothers put movies out at a rapid speed and so many of them, that you may excused for not thinking highly of them ... that is before you actually see some. Of course even they have various degrees of quality, but this right here is more than good! Yes some things have not aged well (like the blood effects generally from back then and in this special case some of the weapons used that in some shots are clearly plastic) ... still this is as entertaining as it can be and yet still gives you some food for thought too