Return of Bastard Swordsman

Return of Bastard Swordsman is an unusual sequel, one that almost completely dispenses with its title character to spend vast tracts of screentime in the company of Tony Liu, recast here from the treacherous mole he essayed in the previous instalment to an, apparently unconnected, fortune teller. Norman Chui's orphaned superman Yun Fei Yang is a fleeting presence then, his diminished role in proceedings perhaps somewhat premised on the enlightenment the character experienced in the prior film? So, having shown mercy at the conclusion of writer-director Lu Chun-Ku's Bastard Swordsman, by refusing to erase the Wudang martial arts school that had mercilessly bullied him, Yun strode off into an uncertain future rather than stick around and assume leadership of his devastated former home. Yun's ambivalence has left Wudang rudderless though. Easy prey for the nearby Invincible school, who are spoiling for a fight, and a clan of Japanese ninja who have shown up to encroach on this territory.

As an aside, it's hard not to delight in the Ega force's violent assault on Wudang headquarters, slaughtering a selection of newly imported big shots as well as the ageing law makers who, previously, made Yun's life a living hell. If only the silken superman had done it himself. Far less deranged in either its plotting or the film's physical construction, Return is a misshapen retread that ties itself in knots to (re)deliver on the reincarnation beats established in its predecessor. What Lu's sequel does have going for it though is any time spent in the company of Alex Man as Master Dugu, the cuckolded sifu of Invincible school and the means by which Return dissects a specific kind of middle-aged anxiety. Having dedicated his life to training in seclusion, Dugu finds himself alone and unloved as he nears the end of his life. As well as driving his wife into the arms of another, Dugu's mastery of laser-blasting martial arts has, understandably, caused his blood pressure to spike dangerously as well. It's a diagnosis that sees this cackling, well-dressed madman shit out of luck when he battles against an Ega ninja master who can puff out his own, incredible chest then use the oversized, jackhammering organ within to disrupt the rhythm of Dugu's broken heart. 

Bastard Swordsman

Writer-director Lu Chun-Ku's Bastard Swordsman refuses to sit still. Structured around the tangled webs woven by competing martial arts schools, the film is constant movement and counter-movement. This rush of gesticulation isn't just the weightless figures blasting around the frame either. Onscreen energies have sunken into the piece itself, resulting in an assembly that reads like a tape stuck on fast-forward. Lu and cinematographer Chin Chiang Ma (who previously collaborated on the similarly mind-boggling Holy Flame of the Martial World) approach even basic head-to-head conversations as an opportunity to hurl the camera into their actor's faces or stalk around them in an aggressive, agitated manner. Editors So Chan-Kwok, Lau Shiu-Gwong and Chiang Hsing-Lung are the willing accomplices, paring down their director's raw footage until Bastard Swordsman is nothing but breathless motion. 

Perhaps this method of delivery is reflective of an overstuffed screenplay? One that aims to condense a 60 episode television series (the show in question, Reincarnated, was broadcast on Hong Kong TV in 1979) into one, ninety minute movie? Lu crams in factions and sub-factions; secret identities and betrayals; as well as heart-breaking familial disorder, into a story that is, broadly, a kind of wuxia Cinderella. Norman Chui, who passed away recently, plays Yun Fei Yang, an orphan who overcomes his diminished station in life to fight on behalf of the kung-fu academy that used him as a live target during throwing dart lessons. Transformed from a virginal whipping boy into a supernatural demi-God, thanks to the combined efforts of several (deferred) love interests, Yun vanquishes the pretenders that have besmirched the good name of Wudang. Having won the day, it's a shame that Yun doesn't go even further, tearing down the pillars of the sect that so relentlessly mistreated him. Unfortunately, for this blood-thirsty audience, by that point in the story Yun towers over such earthly concerns.

Vengeance!

Released in May 1970, Chang Cheh's Vengeance! occupies its own, distinct, space between the halting nausea of John Boorman's Point Blank and the suited-and-booted vendetta powering a certain British crime film directed by Mike Hodges. Chang's film even seems to anticipate certain elements of that latter piece: both Vengeance! and 1971's Get Carter feature the immaculately tailored brother of a murdered man wading, almost effortlessly, through a nest of small-time crooks while pursued by a deadly sniper. Curiously, Vengeance's Hong Kong cinema release came just three months after the publication of the book Carter was based on, Ted Lewis' Jack's Return Home, so it's conceivable that someone at Shaw Brothers Studio was taking notes on the novel's broad plotting when outlining this feature. All that said, the crisp mod lines of David Chiang's buttoned-up suits - both black and a funereal white - definitively prefigure Carter's luxuriant three-piece. 

Chang uses these outfits to differentiate his stylish subject from the unbuttoned heavies that flank his enemies. They accentuate the actor's lither lines. The contrast is clear: David Chiang is a matinee idol in a sea of unremarkable slobs. Unlike the aforementioned Michael Caine classic, Vengeance! though finds space to detail the killing that incites such a bloody, single-minded response. The film spends time with Ti Lung's Guan Yu Lou, a theatrical performer who believes himself as tough (mostly with good reason) as the Chinese folk heroes he portrays on stage. After tangling with a local mobster over an unfaithful wife, Guan Yu meets a bloody end thanks to the small army of amoral retainers that the crime lord keeps on payroll. Chang and editor Chiang Hsing-Lung employ a sickly dreaminess to describe this killing, drawing a clear line between the death throes of this bloodied brother and the twirling acrobatics of his earlier, operatic, performance. When Ti Lung's character finally submits to the punctures stamped all over his body, Chang inserts a shot of the actor lying dead on stage, the curtains open and appalled before an unmoved audience. 

Revenge in this film then is demonstrably motivated by a collective indifference to the murder of a slighted individual, one who had found himself powerless when attacking the corruption that upholds the establishment. This grudge must then be resolved by the actor's younger, meaner brother. Vengeance!, much like Chang's previous hit The Wandering Swordsman, is comfortable literalising the thoughts that prickle across the minds of these dying men; the fantasies and flights of fancy that hint at a life beyond whichever suicide pact that have, willingly, sunken themselves into. Although Chiang's Guan Xiao Lou proves himself far more capable than his older brother - equalising a feud that, eventually, seems to encompass an entire province's worth of violent belligerents - the end result is no less fatal. Bleeding out, he imagines himself in the company of his older brother, a cheery connection perhaps missing in the lives these men actually lived. This hallucinogenic quality reaches out into the rest of film, even encompasses the depiction of violence. Pivotal maulings are slowed to a crawl, luxuriating in eerie music and ghoulish sound cues that seem to denote an episode of profound mania - an aesthetic flourish, incidentally, copied to great effect to describe the bloodlust felt by Bruce Lee in 1973's Enter the Dragon. 

The Wandering Swordsman

The Wandering Swordsman, directed by Chang Cheh, charts the rambling adventures of David Chiang's eponymous ranger, a lightly supernatural presence in Ming Dynasty era China who combines the altruistic intentions of Robin Hood with a weightless mischief reminiscent of JM Barrie's Peter Pan. There's also something of Toshiro Mifune's sauntering bodyguard about the character too; an expert swordfighter trapped between two equally matched factions. However, where the older (itchier) Yojimbo was able to leverage his spectacular martial arts skills to manipulate his competing troublemakers, Chiang's much younger man is himself hoodwinked and exploited. Although Chang's film takes a significant amount of time getting there, Chiang's rootless swordsman is, eventually, tricked into working alongside a group of dastardly thieves, cast as their difference maker. 

While a litany of disguised officials and treacherous bandits go about their circuitous treasure transportation, director Chang repeatedly returns to a Cheshire Cat image of the smiling Chiang. The actor is photographed in the manner of a pop-star pin-up, his pearly white teeth shining out of the creeping greenery that hangs like a haze over these claustrophobic Shaw Brothers sets. No matter the occasion, Chiang is the subject. This pointed attempt at star making could come off as obnoxious where The Wandering Swordsman less dedicated to chewing up its characters: Bolo Yeung, in his feature film debut, has his face cut in half while the heroic Chiang is skewered more than once, forced to wrench swords from his oozing trunk. Chang and cinematographer Hua Shan stack their frame with layered limbs and glistening weapons, perhaps as a way to generate depth on these stock, artificial locations. The combat sequences that conclude The Wandering Swordsman may be filled with the theatrical twirling and tumbling typical of this period, but Chang's camera doesn't stand apart from the bloody violence. Instead of observing at a discreet distance, our viewpoint rushes headlong into the sparking flurries, making itself a willing participant in the unfolding slaughter. 

The Chinese Boxer

As confident a directorial debut as you're ever likely to see, Jimmy Wang Yu's The Chinese Boxer (released as The Hammer of God in some territories) constantly looks for ways to submerge the viewer into the personal and physical stresses facing the film's hero. Wang Yu plays Lei Ming, the last survivor of a Chinese martial arts school levelled by supernatural Japanese invaders and their Chinese collaborators. Although at death's door himself, Ming swears revenge. Wang Yu, who was coming to the end of his time as an underpaid in-house talent with Shaw Brothers Studios, was in his mid-20s when he wrote, directed and starred in The Chinese Boxer. With that in mind, the film plays like a calling card for potential investors in Wang Yu's future blockbusters - the actor presenting himself as a matinee idol uniquely attuned to the bloodthirsty cravings of his audience. Chinese Boxer then is restless and constantly inventive. Wang Yu and cinematographer Shan Hua never play it safe with their shots, avoiding typical, locked-down, glimpses of backlot sets that had to have been laundered through dozens of features at this point. 

Action photography is similarly untethered, thrusting itself into straining grapples to better capture clenched teeth or circling a shrinking exchange with a massing, barely removed, mob. The Chinese Boxer really sings though during the body-smashing training Lei Ming subjects himself to while on the path for revenge. Although a routine premise now, Chinese Boxer's tale of a broken kung-fu student rebuilding his body through stressful drilling was novel at the time of the film's original release. Wang Yu and Shan Hua get to create a visual language of their own when considering these wilful, transgressive, transformations. Their model emphasises the horrific nature of the changes being enacted on a vulnerable - even sickly - human body. Surrounded by cobwebbed gargoyles, Lei Ming plunges his hands into boiling sands in an effort to create a callused pair of claws. The sequence careens at a Satanic fervour - the horrendous carvings bring themselves to bear on the soundtrack, laughing and snorting at Ming's torturous metamorphosis. Wang Yu doesn't neglect the frail human element in these macabre rituals either: although Lei Ming achieves his deadened technique, his hands are irreparably changed into bubbling talons that must be wrapped in surgical gauze to avoid becoming infected. Ming then is the hero as wounded and maniacal; lousy with a sickness that can only be purged through (righteous) violence.