Invincible Eight
There are a number of things that contributed
to making this a fairly tiresome film for 120 minutes of its 135 minute
running time. The main problem is that the Invincible Eight are far from
invincible. In every fight until the final one, they get pretty badly beaten
up. Then when they confront the main villain, they need all eight of them
to subdue him.
Another main problem is that this film had no
sub-titles. It was kind of nice not having to hear some torturously bad
dubbing, but there is a lot of talking going on in this film and I may
as well have been on Mars for all I understood of the plot. In fact
there was way too much conversing for a film with a title like this has.
I felt like I was at my grandmothers when I was a child and having to sit
around and listen to the adults chat for hours until I finally got to eat
the apple pie. That’s how painful it is getting to the final fight.
So since I have no idea what the story was about
besides the fact that these eight individuals seem to be a bit miffed at
some fellow – and finally join forces to fight him. That’s it. That’s all
I could understand. So lets focus on the action and on Angela Mao.
Angela looks great in this film. She has wonderful
fashion sense here and wears this headpiece that is sort of kung-fu meets
the flying nun. I didn’t realize for much of the film that she is disguised
as a male. She does this in a few films and all I can say is that either
people must have been very unobservant in those days or there were a lot
of very feminine guys running around. Of course most of us don’t view an
Angela Mao film for fashion tips – it’s watching her in action that gets
our blood boiling. There is not a lot of blood boiling material here. In
a few scenes she has brief fights utilizing her fan and then in the big
finale she sort of gets lost in the crowd. A major disappointment especially
considering how poorly the other so called Invincible Eight fight.
None of the individual fights are very compelling.
Basically Pai Ying and his minions surround them and whip them into submission
(look for Sammo as one of the white clad whippers). When they do fight,
they look so slow that I think I could take them with my tennis racket
on a good day. Not exciting stuff. In the end there is a good fight as
the eight of them storm the castle of the bad guys, slice their way through
the minions, take on Pai Ying and then finally Han Ying Chieh. It is worth
mentioning that one of the Invincible 8 is Nora Miao of Bruce Lee fame.
This is a fairly early Angela Mao film – before
her classics – so don’t expect a lot.
