Golden Sword, The (1969)

Swordsman Bai Chun-tung (Lo Wei) is abruptly escorted away by menacing masked riders and never returns. Ten years later, his son Yu-lung (Kao Yuen) travels beyond the central regions of China in a three-year search and along the way falls in love with a swordswoman beggar (Cheng Pei-pei) and discovers his family’s link to the evil Dragon Palace.

With The Golden Sword, I am now firmly convinced that Lo Wei, much maligned by genre fans for exploiting the fame of Bruce Lee and miscasting Jackie Chan, was in fact a very talented wuxia writer and director during his sixteen-year tenure at Shaw Brothers before taking on the boxer genre at Golden Harvest and fading away with his own production company. Like Dragon Swamp and The Shadow Whip, this film stars the wonderful “Queen of Swords” Cheng Pei-pei and is also an immensely entertaining affair where colorful characters and high adventure reign supreme.

Cheng Pei-pei gets top billing as befitting the demands of the era when women ruled the box office, but Kao Yuen shares the spotlight. This former secondary school teacher was a versatile actor who worked with all of the major studios before retiring in the mid-’80s. As sword hero, he has the handsome looks and charisma, but definitely belongs to the “flowery fists” society of screen fighters alongside the likes of Yueh Hua and Lau Wing. Per usual, Lo Wei, who was once a leading man himself, costars and a young Sammo Hung doubles him for a sword fight and assists with the movie’s choreography.

Ni Kuang’s adapted story is epic, yet quite accessible and only hindered by some of SB’s “outdoor” sets created to mimic the exotic locales of Western and Northern China, mostly seen in a montage sequence. It begins as all great stories do, on a dark and stormy night. Respected swordsman Bai Chun-tung (Lo Wei) disappears with two mysterious riders in black and after ten years of fruitless searching by his colleagues in the martial world, Bai’s son Yu-lung heads out into the desolate Western regions. There, he encounters corrupt security escorts, killers known as the Three Cripples, and one dirt-smeared and stubborn beggar named Ngai Jin-feng (Cheng Pei-pei) who turns out to be a beautiful swordswoman in disguise. Jin-feng joins him on his search and the two eventually marry. Then out of nowhere arrives Chun-tung’s golden sword, followed by two more black riders, this time to carry Yu-lung away. It’s soon discovered that the riders are from Dragon Palace, a place only rumored to exist where swordswomen possess superior skill. When it’s also discovered that it is a place of great evil where Yu-lung’s life may be at risk, Jin-feng goes in search of her kidnapped husband and receives vital aid from an unlikely person. Ultimately, family bonds and self sacrifice prove powerful enough to overcome injustice.

What I tend to notice about Lo Wei’s early swordplay films is a balanced sense of storytelling and fun that doesn’t always exist in other wuxia movies from any era. First, The Golden Sword has a sword hero we can relate to. He’s good at what he does, but not good enough to win on his own. And it’s strong family ties, not revenge or conceit that motivates our martial heroes to act. The villains of the story are not so much evil, but victims of their circumstances. As such, the dramatic ending may seem anti-climatic from an action standpoint, but it still comes with a solid punch.

As for fun, the movie has some great, bloody action scenes and one hilariously infectious musical number. Cheng Pei-pei shines on both counts, when battling a one-eyed Guk Fung and his fellow Cripples dressed somewhat convincingly as a male beggar or when cutting the rug in a rambunctious beggars’ song and dance number as the beauty she really. It reminded me of the musical numbers implanted in a Marx Brothers comedy. The action gets as bloody as a Chang Cheh feature on several occasions and hits a wondrous high when Cheng skewers a flying adversary above her head with twin daggers as blood rains down on her. It’s probably not a good thing, but I still enjoyed seeing highly-animated extras performing their swordplay shuffle in the background as the stars would fight. It’s a cheap way of filling the screen with moving bodies while only having to choreograph two or three of them since the rest simply dance around with swords drawn.

It has its minor imperfections like some abrupt editing, fake sets and plot gaps, but that doesn’t diminish the joy of watching The Golden Sword. It’s still a thrilling martial arts adventure film with a boisterous musical score, moderately gruesome combat and another great performance from Cheng Pei-pei.