‘One-Armed Magic Nun’ – Chan Lit-bun and the ‘Mad Diva’ of wuxia

At the beginning of the 1960s, Cantonese swordplay movies were a fixture at the Hong Kong box office. Actors like Yu So-chow, Walter Tso, and Shek Kin cranked out low budget martial arts films at an unbelievably hectic pace. By mid-decade, teenagers Connie Chan and Josephine Siao had joined the ranks, and Chan Lit-bun, Wu Pang, and Ling Wan were among the top action film directors of the time. But by the end of the decade, Mandarin-language filmmakers had taken over the genre. King Hu’s COME DRINK WITH ME (1966) and Chang Cheh’s ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967) revolutionized Chinese martial arts films by deploying larger budgets and a more cinematic esthetic – in contrast, the Cantonese films were often little more than filmed opera plays with simple camera effects added. It would be yet another decade before Cantonese kung fu movie makers like Jackie Chan and Yuen Woo-ping re-asserted control of the local industry.

(Above) Actress Suet Nei, photo courtesy David Wells.

Wuxia director Chan Lit-bun.

Director Chan Lit-bun’s career reflects this flowering and dimming of Cantonese wuxia cinema. Born in Guangdong Province in 1923, he joined the film industry in 1947, working first as an actor (frequently in martial arts films by early directors like Hung Chung-ho and Wong Tin-lam) and then on the production side, monitoring script continuity and assisting directors like Wu Pang, the man responsible for most of the original Wong Fei-hung films. His directing debut was THE GOLDEN HAIRPIN, PART ONE (1963), and he went on to make almost 40 films over the next nine years. Most of the films were in the genre of wuxia, or magical swordplay. Chan was immediately recognized as a wuxia visionary, and his energetic approach to the genre was quite popular. He specialized in offbeat female characters, and one of his favorite leading ladies was a young actress named Suet Nei.

Suet Nei specialized in “mad diva” wuxia roles, as in THE GREEN EYED DEMONESS (1967), also directed by Chan Lit-bun.

Vivacious Suet Nei was an ideal match for Chan’s take on the wuxia heroine as high-spirited, fierce, and unpredictable. THE GOLDEN HAIRPIN was the first film made by the 16 year old actress, who then went on to make another dozen films with the director. In the Hong Kong Film Archive publication “The Making of Martial Arts Films, As Told by Filmmakers and Stars,” Suet Nei is quoted as recalling, “I did trampoline leaps and action scenes on wires myself. I could also manage to jump down from roofs…I was just a girl then, and didn’t know fear.” Her aptitude in kung fu filmmaking must have impressed the experts – in 1969, she retired from acting to marry martial arts choreographer Tong Kai, who would go on to create fight scenes for many of the most iconic of the Shaw Brothers studio’s 1970s films. Suet Nei came out of retirement to work in TV a few years ago. She has also appeared in occasional films, like THE WHITE DRAGON (2004).

Ad for THE ONE-ARMED MAGIC NUN.

The last film that Suet Nei worked on for Chan Lit-bun was 1969’s THE ONE ARMED MAGIC NUN. Compared to the best Shaw studio films (and keeping in mind that Bruce Lee would release THE BIG BOSS two years later), MAGIC NUN strikes me as too much of a throwback to the wuxia films made earlier in the decade – the cinematography too static, the costumes and make-up too cheesy – but the feisty female roles played by Suet Nei, who has been ensnared in an evil spell and forced to do the bidding of a sorceress, and Lin Jing, as the titular Magic Nun, are fun to watch. It was probably one of the last old-style Cantonese costume swordplay films ever made, marking the end of an era. Chan Lit-bun formed a production company in Taiwan for a couple of years, but eventually he, like his longtime leading lady, retired from the film industry.

Here’s a clip of Suet Nei from THE ONE ARMED MAGIC NUN:

Tags: Chan Lit-bun, Suet Nei, Wuxia