Heroes of Sung (1973)

Two sword masters loyal to a captive Sung Dynasty prince charge their three students with the task of bringing royal seals to the prince’s younger brother to rule on his behalf. The trio must overcome the wily villains of Fengyan Hall to succeed.

Heroes of Sung is a standard Chinese swordplay actioner with bizarre weaponry, cartoon-like gore, excessive trampoline and wire-fu use, and a simplistic story that betrays its serial film roots. Even with all of the Chang Cheh style violence it contains, San Kong’s direction is frequently old fashioned and awkward in comparison. Poor art direction reveals bland and artificial sets that appear worse than usual for old school Shaw Brothers films. Most of the cast is mediocre apart from Lo Lieh who exudes dark intensity. But the film is partially saved by excellent early choreography from a young Yuen Cheung-yan (one source credits his brother Yuen Wo-ping as choreographer, but at best it’s likely they collaborated on this film with Wo-ping doing some stunt work). Best of all, there is a standout performance from one of the jade screen’s top female martial arts stars that remains largely unknown in the West.

The era of female dominance in leading swordplay roles was beginning to diminish by 1973, but there was still plenty of demand for kung fu leading ladies. The reigning queen of kung fu was Cheng Pei-pei (Come Drink with Me), but in an industry where women had notoriously short careers, her successor had already been chosen and her name was Si-Si.

When watching this film, it’s not difficult to see how non-martial artists are made to look like competent fighters onscreen. Like most films made after 1985, Heroes of Sung features a lot of quick cuts, doubling, and gadgets like wires and trampolines. The latter piece of equipment is overused as no less than eight high flying leaps are counted in one fight scene alone. But even with all of this gimmickry, Si Si’s physical abilities stand out. Lo Lieh was always a better actor than a martial arts performer, but he was certainly no slouch. But even he isn’t even in the same league. Si Si is simply a ball of fire in this film who lights up whenever the action begins. Cheung-yan gets her to take on multiple opponents at once and perform the longest takes of anyone in the film. She lacks the power of Polly Kuan and the intensity of Angela Mao, but makes up for it with movements that are fluid, dynamic, and play well to the camera, if not for some poor camera shots. Her weapons handling is excellent and she gets to wield the film’s best weapon, dual swords that lock together at the hilt in one knockout dungeon scene. Script-wise she is a supporting player, but action-wise she easily dominates the whole film with great skill and some really wicked finishing moves.
The story itself starts out interesting with a rousing adventure premise, as two elder sword masters named Jing and Meng sneak into an enemy camp to visit the Sung prince who has been taken captive by rebels following the death of the emperor. They are given two royal seals that prove the legitimacy of rule and are instructed to take them to the prince’s younger brother who will then be declared the new emperor in his place. As rebels from Fengyan Hall close in for the kill, one of the swordsmen passes his seal to his elder student Tian-long (Cheung Pooi-saan) and gives a fake one to his hot-headed student Tian-hu (Lo Lieh). The other swordsman passes his seal to his daughter Hong-erh (Si Si). The three meet up and begin their journey, but Tian-hu is waylaid by a seductress who tries to con the seal out of him and turn him against his friends. He is finally put in irons and tortured. This whole subplot is where the film loses a lot of momentum, but it eventually picks up as Hong-erh and Tian-long bust into Fengyun Hall, free Tian-hu, and go at it with the rebels in an all out sword battle.

The sets are so cheesy, the acting so stilted, and the action so exaggerated that one cannot take this film even remotely seriously. This is mindless fluff, even by Shaw standards. But even with glaring flaws, there is still plenty of fun stuff to take in. Like Si Si’s dual swords, the rest of the film’s many gizmos and weapons get a thumbs up for creativity. One of the elder swordsmen loses the ability to walk and gets a big wooden wheelchair armed with darts. He actually sword fights sitting down, making this one of the only wheelchair-bound sword fights you’ll ever see. As lead villain, Chan Chun is pretty forgetful, but not so for his weapon of choice. He wields this spectacular claw, similar to the one used by Lung Fei in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (originally Savage Killers). The featured weapons are the swords wielded by Lo Lieh and his partner Cheung. In the film they use an invincible kung fu technique known as the “joint hands style” where they lock their sword sheaths together which they hold by a special handle with one hand and deal out murderous justice with their unsheathed sword in the other hand. This style is all flowery nonsense that gets out of hand at one point. Near the end, we see Si Si dishing out splendid blood-spurting death with every swing of her sword and twist of her body. Then the camera clumsily swings over to where the odd couple are literally spinning horizontally in mid-air before cutting away before the viewer can even get a laugh in. This absurdity is only outdone by the unflinching scene of one luckless fighter getting sliced in half from head to crotch. It looks gruesome until you put the DVD version at pause and see how cheap the production values really are.

Heroes of Sung tries to follow the bloody trends set by Chang Cheh’s early films, but lacks the same skill and style to pull it off. Cheung-yan’s choreography employs too much fantasy acrobatics in keeping with his Chinese operatic training, but the weapons and mass melee choreography hold up very well in comparison to the peerless work of Master Lau Kar-leung from the same era. Ultimately, Si Si steals the show and proves to be a very strong female martial arts performer with several scenes worth seeing even though most of the film itself is monotonous.