Welcome
to the wonderful wacky wuxia world of Chor Yuen. In the 1970's he made one
terrific fantastical wuxia film after another. Some may be better than this,
but this is a good place to start if you have not already. His imagination
is on full speed in this one. A riotous mash up of swordplay, betrayals,
fabulous artificial sets, heartbreak, complications, clans and the bizarre.
It was scripted by the legendary Ni Kuang who seems to have been behind dozens
if not hundreds of Shaw films. He does the outline and Chor fills in the
details with action choreography from Tong Kai and Yuen Cheung-yan. It is
a potent combination that never stops throwing things at the audience and
never slows down. All good fun.
The Five Venom Spider Clan have a secret
weapon. A deadly spider that they keep in a box until they need it. It can
spew out poisonous gasses and webs that burn and crackle over a large space.
No clan can stand up against it. But it is so dangerous that the head of
the clan has hidden it for generations - even from other clan members. The
current leader (Wang Hsieh) refuses one of his top men played by Lo Lieh
who wants to use it in an upcoming tournament for Boxer of the World. Wang's
wife played by Angela Yu-chien is having an affair with Lo Lieh and they
are conspiring how to find out where the spider box is. They all live in
one of the coolest lairs ever. Their lair has all the comforts of home -
secret rooms, sliding doorways, poison gas, acid ponds, a spider décor
with a large spider sculpture on the ground with glowing blinking eyes. Just
the best place for his daughter, the lovely Ching Li, to grow up in. She
is a bit of a rascal though and enjoys dressing up as a tramp who everyone
mistakes as a man. Eating meals in restaurant and then fighting her way out
when she refuses to pay. Her kung fu and dart throwing ability are tops.
Teach your children well.
In her tramp garb she runs into the number
two man in the Wudang Clan - played by Yuen Hua - and the two hit it off
- him thinking she is a man. When she later shows up in the best finery floating
a small boat, he is a bit smitten. All hell breaks loose soon though when
Lo Lieh's plans to get the spider box go forward and a number of clans all
go looking for it like a treasure hunt game. All sorts of people start getting
killed in clever ways - the fire breathers were deadly as were the many traps
to get to the spider. When Ching Li saves Yuen from certain death, he has
to marry her because she hid him in her bed and his arm touched her!
He seems fine with that. But more tragedies lie ahead. Others who show up
are Lily Li who has a thing for Yuen, the head of the Wudang clan, Ching
Miao, Ku Feng, Chan Shen, Norman Tsui, Ou Yang Sha-fei who has one of the
best moments when she cuts her arm off in apology and many many more. Like
most Chor Yuen films, this is a narrative mess with more characters than
you can keep up with, but it is a delightful mess filled with imagination
and clashing swords - not to mention a spider that never dies.
