Runtime: 103 minutes
Directed by: Cheh Chang
Starring: Lo Lieh, Pei-Pei Cheng, Lei Cheng, Chih-Ching Yang, Miao Ching
From: Shaw Brothers
It has been a long time since seeing something like this from the Shaw Brothers so when I stumbled across this random film on the El Rey Network, I had to check it out and it wasn't a bad decision on my part. My Letterboxd review is below:
It has been way too long since I've seen a traditional Shaw Brothers martial arts film so I went with this one, as it was on the El Rey Network (last night).
The plot: A swordswoman named Ying (Cheng Pei-Pei) sees a bad guy murder a couple and rape the female; she kills him. The bad guy is part of a gang known as the Green Dragons and well, they do get revenge, but it's not the same as that one film from last year that's apparently disappointingly bad. They go after her clan. The Green Dragons are a lethal bunch and their leader is a master at the title instrument-he's also a master at laughing maniacally-so they are glad when a rogue swordsman known as Ching (Lo Lieh) gets involved and he usually doesn't like to meddle in the affairs of others but he slowly changes his mind. A romance is also part of the equation.
This is not the most spectacular Shaw Brothers film I've seen, the most inventive or the most creatively shot. Yet this is still a solid entry. Most of the action is either the titular flying daggers or swords. This results in a lot of blood flowing or spraying all over the place. The hero comes off as a jerk at first but he goes on a hero's journey which includes having a downfall and training for a big comeback and redemption.
Like I said, it's a solid entry where you get a lot of what you expect (scenic locations, people being badasses, over the top villains, etc.) and a nice return to the genre for me. It was cool seeing several badasses, from Ying and Ching to a few others.
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