Invincible Eight Film Review

Invincible Eight

Director: Lo Wei
Year: 1971
Rating: 7.5

A running joke about the old kung-fu films was that there was basically only one plot with variations. It is revenge. Usually for your father or mother but it could be a sibling as well and occasionally a friend. When children were taught in school they must have first studied Confucius, then calligraphy and then Revenge 101. If your parents are murdered, your mission is to get retribution no matter how many years it takes. You can't go oh well maybe they deserved it or it was a fair fight or I didn't really know my parents. No excuses. You have to train hard and when you are ready go kill.

That was why Heroes of Shaolin was such an exception - at the end of the film when the son is finally able to kill the killer of his father, he instead forgives him. In The Invincible Eight they take the concept of revenge for the killing of a father a step further - eight of them with father's who were all killed treacherously by the same man. He is powerful with an army of bodyguards and none of them can kill him on their own so when they co-incidentally come upon others in the same situation they band together with one aim. Revenge. It is a fine film with a load of talent - some very new and some real veterans. This is more wuxia than kung-fu with lots of sword play, whips and levitation. All well done with a classical look to it in the King Hu camp. A number of small action scenes displaying the talents of the Eight as well as the villains. Then of course at the end is the big finale.

Let's begin with the production company. It was one of Golden Harvest's first films and has an entirely different logo than we are used to. GH has yet to establish its own personality and if this had been a Shaw film, no one would be surprised. In fact, the director Lo Wei had just left Shaw and this was his first film after that. I know Lo Wei gets a lot of knocks because he didn't use Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan properly but if you look at his entire filmography you may notice a lot of good films were his. I don't put this down to co-incidence. A few others from Shaw are on hand - Tang Ching, Paul Chang Chung, Lee Kwan and James Tin Cheun. A few from Cantonese films - Lydia Shum and Patrick Tse-yin. A few from Taiwanese films who worked with King Hu, Pai Ying and Han Ying-chieh.

And some newcomers. This is Angela Mao's second film for GH after Angry River. She was apparently in a film in 1968 in a non-action role titled Eight Robbers. There is a terrible copy of it on YouTube that my completest needs will get me to watch. This is the debut of another soon-to-be female action star, Nora Miao. And finally doing the action choreography is Han Ying-chieh (Dragon Inn, A Touch of Zen) whose clean elegant choreography with a large use of the trampoline is a favorite of mine - and the young kid on the Block, Sammo Hung. Sammo's first film in which he did the choreography was The Golden Sword in 1969 - directed by Lo Wei. Lo recognized talent if nothing else. Sammo was learning from one of the best - old fashioned perhaps but his action scenes are always easy to follow. Sammo was to go on and choreograph most of Angela's GH films and over time was to move away from Han's classic style to the fast and furious and remarkably intricate choreography that was to come. So there is a hell of a lot of talent and it is an enjoyable film that is as focused on the suspenseful plot as the action. As to the film.

The cry goes up and down the street in this small dusty town that General Hsiao (Han Ying-chieh) and his many men are going through it. This is a clarion call to get off the streets and soon it is like High Noon at 12. A man with two cleavers who has been sitting in the inn jumps down to assassinate him - the first of the Eight (James Tin Cheun) but he doesn't get far as one of the men throws a dart and disables him. At which point three others who had been in the inn jump down to save him - Tang Ching, Lydia Shum, Paul Chang Chung - and lead him away. They look to be trapped in a labyrinth of streets when a cook (Lee Kwan) hides them. He too is one of the Invincible Eight. Still missing three. Later on dressed as a male scholar armed only with a fan is Angela Mao waiting for her chance to kill Hsiao. The last two were brought up by Hsiao as adopted children but when they hear that he killed their parents - there is no thought that this man raised me - he has to die. These are Nora Miao and Patrick Tse-yin.

Pai Ying is the right arm of Hsiao and he makes such a good bad guy all rouged up like a cheap street girl. His weapon is the whip and he has trained nine whip masters. These guys are great. It is nice to see really competent minions for a change and with their whips being used in unison they are nearly an undefeatable force. Among them you may spot Sammo, Bruce Leung, Billy Chan and Lam Ching-ying. Like I said this film is loaded with talent. I saw this years ago without subs and in a terrible pan and scan version and wrote a bad review on it. Embarrassing. One should probably not review a film when I had no idea what was going on. There is a fine widescreen (or as the film calls it Dyali-Scope) version with easily readable subs up on ok.russ.