THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970)

THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970)

Our first film of seventies is THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970), released January 7th, and produced by Sir Run Run Shaw. It is a historical-drama, pursuit / wuxia film based on a story by I Kuang and Chen Tien-I. This all-star cast film is also Chin Ping's farewell film being the last film she was featured in. Scripted and directed by Cheng Kang, the action directing credits are Simon Chui Yee-Ang ( as Hsu Erh Niu) and Sammo Hung Kam-Bo (as Chu Yuan Ling). Let's get busy!

At the root of this film's plot is the history of General Yue Fei : In short, during the Song Dynasty in 1126 A.D., North China was over run by the nomadic Juchen (Jin) and the Song Capital at Kaifeng was taken. General Yue Fei assumed command of the Song forces and after first retreating south he took the offensive and although being greatly outnumbered he forced the Jin to retreat thereby recovering some of the Song's lost territory.  

Unfortunately, one Minister Qin Hui formed a peace coalition and influenced the Song Emperor to negotiate peace with the Jin and call General Yue Fei back from his military campaign, halting his progress. Not knowing the precise location of General Yue Fei, Minister Qin Hui sent out the twelve gold medallions with the emperor's seal on it ordering the general to return. Defying the imperial edit was a capital offense. Knowing the loyalty of General Yue Fei some martial patriots attempted to keep the general from receiving the order in the first place. This was also a capital offense but as true patriots they risked their lives to do it.   

Master Miao Lung was one such patriot. A former apprentice of Grand Master Jin Yan Tang, Chief of the Hua Shan Clan. Master Miao had learned the Wavering Sword technique from Grand Master Jin. Master Miao gained the attention of Minister Qin Hui by defeating Grand Master Ma Shan Ting's top disciple: Lei Ting,  known as the Golden Whip and preventing Lei Ting from delivering his medallion to General Yue Fei. Grand Master Ma Shan Ting (who himself was known as the Golden Fan), summoned Grand Master Jin to his headquarters at Juxian Hall to answer for Master Miao Lung's actions. 

Grand Master Jin Yan Tang arrives at Juxian Hall and ridicules Grand Master Ma Shan Ting for not being worthy of the Emperor's gold plaque and the gold medallion assignment. Grand Master Ma challenges Grand Master Jin and is defeated and killed. However Minister Qin Hui was watching the entire proceedings and is impressed by Grand Master Jin's skill and confidence. Minister Qin immediately promotes Grand Master Jin to the new Chief of Juxian Hall and puts him in charge of delivering the gold medallions to General Yue Fei. 

But Master Miao Lung has also been watching, albeit as a spy on the rooftop. He is discovered by Grand Master Jin but not captured. Master Miao waits for his former teacher by the road that leads to Grand Master Jin's home to confront him. In addition, Grand Master Jin has two daughters whom he must inform of his newly assigned tasks but has little concern how they will react to it. And so begins this heart-wrenching tale of trust, loyalty and  filial piety.

CAST REPORT

THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970) certainly has an all-star cast: 

the good: Yueh Hua as Master Miao Lung, the hero of the story, Chin Ping as Jin Suo, youngest daughter of Grand Master Jin Yan Tang in her last major performance and as can be expected she is at her very best!   We also have Lisa Chiao Chiao as Jin Huan, elder daughter of Grand Master Jin Yan Tang, and Ku Wen-Chung as Grand Master Green Bamboo Cane Meng Dabei,

the bad: Cheng Miu as Grand Master Jin Yan Tang is the movie's big bad guy, Huang Chung-Hsin as Master Golden Whip Lei Ting, Wang Hsieh as Grand Master Golden Fan Ma Shan Ting, and 

Ku Feng as Ah gui 

HONORABLE MENTION: Fan Mei-Sheng, Lee Kwan, Wang Chung, and James Tien all have small roles as villains.

FIGHT TIME: THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970) has two fight choreographers and 13 fights (including 3 fights in the grand finale). Simon Chui Yee-Ang and the great Sammo Hung Kam-Bo are the fight choreographers of record ...but still... -- the way I am going to put it is this: either the film editor and or the director obscures the technical aspects of the battles until they are non existent. In this way; it is a disappointment. Put another way: there is plenty of action, plenty of swordplay but no martial arts in this movie. So the question becomes: is it fair of me to expect more in terms of martial arts display in a movie made in 1970? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.  

THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS (1970) is a very important film especially for those that would be students of this genre or of Hong Kong movies in general. History and pop culture have always played heavily in the plots of many of these movies and sometimes without the basic knowledge of the source material it can burden one's enjoyment of the project. I hope I can add some information and encourage others to view and ultimately enjoy these movies as much as I do. So, if you are serious about watching Shaw Brothers or Hong Kong films or if you are a Chin Ping fan then this is a must have; if not you can pass on it. See you next time!

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UP NEXT: THE WANDERING SWORDSMAN (1970)

THE SWORD OF SWORDS (1968)

THE SWORD OF SWORDS (1968)

Producer Runme Shaw has assembled the usual cast and crew that works with Chang Cheh including Tang Chia and Liu Chia-Liang as action directors and has replaced him with Cheng Kang to script and direct a Greek tragedy of a tale entitled THE SWORD OF SWORDS (1968). Once it gets going this wuxia tale reminds me of the biblical tale of Job. Let's jump right in and examine the plot. 

In the year 1,000 B.C. during the Sung Dynasty,  Meng Yao Chi, a master sword-smith used the best metals available and forged a sword ten years in the making. It was known as The Sword of Swords. When China was invaded by the state of Liao, Meng Yao Chi presented this sword to General Meng Liang and General Meng Liang used the sword to win battle after battle defending China, gaming fame for the sword. After General Meng's death The Sword of Sword was lost for a time until it was rediscovered during the Ming Dynasty in the possession of Master Swordsman Mui Lingchuen. The prince of a nearby barbarian tribe (during the Ming Dynasty this usually meant Mongolian) coveted the sword and dispatched a entrusted warrior, Shang Guangwu to acquire it. 

Shang Guangwu is dispatched to acquire The Sword of Swords from Master Mui. Shang Guangwu is persuaded by Fang Shishiung to conspire to decieve Master Mui rather than try to take the sword by force. They are successful in that Master Mui takes Fang Shishiung as his first student but Master Mui starts a formal school and has several students. Of all the students in the school the only concern for Fang Shishiung is his Fifth Brother: Lin Jenshiau. Although Lin Jenshiau is a meek and reserved character Fang Shishiung is rightly concerned because Lin Jenshiau has superior skills to Fang. And now, Master Mui has decided to buck tradition and give The Sword of Swords not to the most senior student but to the winner of the school tournament as the best fighter. 

Not wanting The Sword of Swords, Lin Jenshiau tries to throw his match with Fang Shishiung but Master Mui sees through this ruse and insist they fight again but Fang says no need, he will concede defeat and give The Sword of Swords to Lin Jenshiau BUT this is a ruse as well and once the sword is in his hands he gloats that he is the better man and has won. Lin fights with Fang again to protect Master Mui and The Sword of Swords breaks! It is a fake. Master Mui has foreseen through this ruse as well and commands Lin to kill Fang but Lin lets him run off. Master Mui lectures Lin and tells him that although he has let Fang go, Fang will never let go of his attempt to acquire The Sword of Swords and then, the film get serious. The sh*t that Fang and Shang Guangwu (remember him, Fang's boss?) put Lin through to try to acquire The Sword of Sword is really what this movie is all about and is enough to put anyone into therapy. 

Huang Chung-Hsin plays Shang Guangwu as a depraved, evil, lackey-in-charge who doesn't think it unless you tell him to, dispatched by a barbarian prince to acquire (read steal) The Sword of Swords. The Late Tien Feng masterfully plays Fang Shishiung as an ice-cold, twisted villian who as a child must have pulled wings off of butterflies just to watch them try to fly and is the real mastermind of the hell planned for anyone who stands between him and The Sword of Swords. 

Cheng Miu plays Master Swordsman Mui Lingchuen owner of the sword, who has to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Jimmy Wang Yu is Lin Jenshiau, the hero, that for me, personally, I hate with a passion! The do-everything-to-me-and-my family until even Mother Teresa would have had your head on a stick- Hero that could have ended this sh*t long ago with one proper swing of the sword --but that's just me. There are Shaw Brother loyalists that I have heard love this film, ("it's a classic") and honestly I don't hate it, either, there are just a few plot holes that, the more you love Shaw Brothers the more you can over look the flaws.

HONORABLE MENTION: Li Ching as Jenshiau's wife Bai Feng for putting up with what could have been much worse.

FIGHT TIME: The team of Tang Chia and Liu Chia-Liang are the fight choreographers for THE SWORD OF SWORDS (1968). I counted 5 (five) fight scenes in the movie including the totally worth the whole movie finale that was worthy of these gentlemen getting co-plotters credits (however they don't do that in movies only in comic books). Liu Chia-Liang did a cameo as 2nd brother and a stunt double on the 720 blade attack during the inter-class tournament --sweet!

What we have here, is a successful communication. One of the fundamental rules of public writing is to never give in to using profanity. I violated this rule twice! I so disliked the character of the protagonist that I was literally yelling at the monitor like we did at the movie theater back in the days of 42nd Street. So, was this a good movie? It was a great movie quite simply because this is what a movie is supposed to do. Move you emotionally.  Kudos to Cheng Kang,  we indeed have another Shaw Brothers Classic Production that I wholeheartedly recommend to viewers and collectors alike. See you next time!

NEXT UP : DEATH VALLEY (1968)

THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968)

THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968)

Sir Run Run Shaw produces our next movie: THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968) directed by both Griffin Yueh Feng and Cheng Kang, with the script written by Ko Jui-Fen. I have read of Sir Run Run Shaw great admiration of Japanese movies and this seems to be his homage to them. A derivative product does not in and of itself make a bad movie but can they pull it off? Let's see.  

Jiang Dan Feng is a wanderer known as The Magnificent Swordsman. As he is traveling he is set upon by a pair of bandits whom he dispatches in very quick fashion. However, one of the bandits gives Jiang Dan Feng a dying request to bring his sword to his sister in the nearby Sha Village. A small village that is under siege by the group of bandits these two would-be killers belonged to. Arriving at the village he is held responsible for killing one of the villagers own because, as it turns out, the owner of the sword was just a consort of the bandits but not yet a "full member", if you will. At odds with both the villagers and the bandits he feels obligated to the young sister who is now alone in the world without her brother and decides he will protect her even at the cost of his own life. 

The casting of Huang Chung-Hsin as the lead hero was interesting as hell and I was not at all thinking in favor of it before I experienced the whole movie than after I saw it all the way through. The ebb and flow of the villagers attitude towards the stranger (mostly ebb) was totally in sync with the character portrayal of Huang Chung-Hsin and it helped me accept the movie as it was. Also great casting was Shu Pei-Pei in juxtaposition to Mr. Huang's character with so little sexual tension (read as none what-so-ever) between them that when the impropriety of their company was mentioned, it came off as ridiculous as we were supposed to think it was, which in turn held us at arm's length from the villagers who were not as upright in their thinking as they thought they were. The casting and acting in THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968) was not its sore point, on the contrary it was quite good. 

HONORABLE MENTION: Tien Feng, Wei Pin-Ao and Cheng Miu   

FIGHT TIME: Well, with such a title as THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968) the stakes for there being "magnificent" sword fights were pretty high, unfortunately, it was just not to be. I counted five (5) fight scenes including the finale. This is the bare minimum fight count but I assure you THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968) is not a boring story. The red herring at the very beginning kept us in suspense long enough for the real plot to be set up. Also while there was no one credited for the fight choreography, when I could actually see the techniques they were not bad at all. In fact, a couple or few of the fight scenes were actually quite slick -- especially in the finale, so let me get to what I feel were the two basic fails of the fight scenes that could have been. 

Number one, the shaky or hand held cam scenes were a total fail. Maybe I am bias but I don't get it. I know it is a motion picture but the picture does not have to move. I am just not into a blurry images. Number two: the film editing of the fight scenes was way off. The swordsman would go into a stroke  our eyes would follow the sword but the camera would swing in a random direction and just end up somewhere other than where logic would have you anticipate the technique going, leaving you wondering what you just missed. There was also one other basic fail but it had nothing to do with the fight scenes so I will not put it here with he fight analysis.

 I mentioned at the beginning of this review that "a derivative product is not necessarily an automatic fail" and now I am going to add the "but". But there must be that *uhh* (imagine James Brown uttering it) that makes you feel good after watching it. Something, usually something different about it, that makes you say to a friend, "hey, you have to go see this movie!" Unfortunately, THE MAGNIFICENT SWORDSMAN (1968) doesn't have that *uhh* to help it stand out from the Japanese movies it is obviously paying homage to. The fault could lie in that it is not a remake of any one Japanese samurai movie but a homage to all of them and (in my opinion) needed an extreme expression so that it could also stand on its own and be appreciated. 

The violence was not violent enough, the good guys were not good enough and yes, the bad guys were not bad enough. If even any one of the three were extreme then that would have done it. Instead the whole place and all of its people just seemed to be down on their luck temporarily, and we have all been there. Oh, well and then, we move on. Even further unfortunately if you miss this movie, then any other Japanese classic samurai movie will do at least as well if not much better and so why watch this one? So, I am not going to recommend this movie except for extreme "completist" (collectors that must have every single item). Sorry, but it just be that way sometimes. Every single Shaw Brothers movie will not end up being a classic. Sad, but true. Let me wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 (year of the monkey) and for now, see you next time!   

NEXT UP:  KILLER DARTS (1968)