Love and Sword
Director: Yu Kan-ping
Year: 1979
Rating: 6.0
Aka - The Samurai
Two things I don't like to see in martial arts films are children and action
in the nighttime. This film has both. A really annoying boy who cries a lot
and a number of the action scenes take place in the dark of night. In the
theater the night scenes were probably fine but on video they are very murky
and at times you can barely see anything. This is a solid martial arts film
from Taiwan with a good balance of sword fighting and kung fu. And there is
a lot of it and the choreography from Pan Yao-kun is fast and intricate. Some
of the sword fights go on for a long time and never slow down. Some of his
other work was for the Shaw Brothers and A Touch of Zen for King Hu. The
plot feels very standard until the ending which throws you for a loop and
makes the whole film more substantial. It stars Tien Peng who was in a lot
of these wuxia styled films from Taiwan and though extremely stoic and emotionless,
he cuts a good figure as the hero dressed in white. In many Western releases
he was called Tien Roc.
It begins with a massacre. A group of killers in masks sneak into the Meng
family home and kill nearly everyone in their sleep. In the darkness the only
thing that you can see well is the blood splattered against the windows. Only
the blind daughter Yueh Hsin (Tang Pao-yun) survives. Hsiao Fang (Tien Peng)
finds her among the dead and takes her out and quickly falls in love with
her. He swears revenge on all the killers of her family. The main villain
places a bounty on Hsiao's head and so the action plays out on two levels.
Him tracking down the killers and doing away with them while trying to find
out who hired them - and various professional killers trying to get the bounty
by killing him.
Between the two there is a lot of action. Some of it fairly good, some of
it I could barely see! The main issue is a lack of variety - nearly all the
fights are one against one and I started losing track of who was who. I also
have my doubts about one of the killing techniques -something we see
in many martial arts films. Hsiao jumps on to his opponent and then soars
high into the air - flips around as he comes down and with his sword thrust
in front of him kills his opponent on the way down. Why wouldn't the opponent
just move off a ways? Based on the writing of Gu Long and directed by Yu Kan-ping.
