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Cast:
Derek
Yee
Candy
Yu
Wang
Jung
Lo
Lieh
Wang
Lai
Ching
Li
Candy
Wen
Writer:
Louis
Cha
Director:
Chu
Yuan
Score:
 
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HEAVEN
SWORD AND DRAGON SABRE
AKA:
Chivalrous Killer
Year:
1978 Reviewer: Andrew
Saroch
There
are exoteric swordplay films, ones which make an attempt to
include the layman in the heady martial world, and there are
esoteric ones that makes no apology for their convoluted
storylines. Chu Yuan's wildly entangled version of Chin Yung's
'Heaven Sword And Dragon Sabre' sits in the latter category
and wears its absurdities proudly on its sleeve.
Chang
Wu Ji is a young orphan whose parents committed suicide after
severe pressure from a few insidious clans within the martial
world. Added to this woe is the child's terminal wound, a
progressively debilitating strike called the 'Freezing Palm'
that has no known cure. His current guardian leaves Chang with
the famed Dr. Wu in the hope that continued treatment will
stop the inevitable cumulative effect of the fearsome blow.
Unfortunately, despite a decade of intensive care, Chang's
ailment remains and he decides to dedicate the remainder of
his life to finding those who were responsible for his
parents' demise. As he starts his journey, Chang encounters a
series of figures from the various rival clans who are warring
for supremacy in the martial world and involves himself in the
numerous conflicts he witnesses. Soon the young avenger is
joining the trail for the 'Heaven Sword', a blade supposedly
protected by a golden-haired warrior who Chang once studied
under.
To
devote any more time to the synopsis is futile as 'Heaven
Sword And Dragon Sabre' is the kind of bewildering concoction
that cannot be fully detailed in a simple review. With a
legion of characters and sub-plots, this is a swordplay film
that was designed to test the concentration of the genre
cognoscenti while leaving any newcomers in a state of mental
turmoil. It's very much the kind of production where we
regularly see two characters deep in conversation when a third
leaps into the scene and an extended bout of swordsmanship
ensues. Alternatively there are numerous scenes of cackling
clan leaders bickering over whose special move is the scariest
- extend either idea over 100 minutes and it's easy to see how
uninvolving the production becomes.
It
may descend into an inaccessible martial arts soap opera, but
if nothing else it starts promisingly. Skipping past a
lengthy, though necessary, voice over that explains the
context of our story, 'Heaven Sword And Dragon Sabre' opens
with a classic genre conceit; a vengeance-seeking hero whose
skills do not match his obsessions. The narrative also gives
the hero the further handicap of having to contend with a
terminal illness due to an earlier injury, a technique that
makes his later triumph all the more enjoyable. These early
scenes are enjoyable as Chang Wu Ji wanders into the vast
martial world and tries to discover which of the people he
meets is friend and which is foe - thanks to the appealing
Derek Yee, the viewer shares the hero's voyage of discovery.
Unfortunately, due to the inherent difficulty of trying to
condense an epic work of fiction into two 100 minute features,
it isn't long before the viewer is deluged with information
and background detail.
'Heaven
Sword And Dragon Sabre' produces moments of interest and
displays Chu Yuan's visual flair, an asset to nearly every
film he has lensed. Nevertheless, it is difficult for these
isolated incidents to amount to anything more than just
minimal interest. The director has taken complicated source
material and distilled it into something arresting before, but here
he finds too many sub-plots to balance and too many characters
to accommodate. That his work is infinitely more watchable
than Wong Jing's take on the same material, 'Kung-Fu Cult
Hero', is feint praise as this lacks the hook that is needed
to keep the viewer on board through all of the plot
machinations. The closing few minutes feature a brief
over-view of the direct sequel, but sitting through another
100 minutes of similar complexities is never going to be that
enticing.
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