Revengeful Swordswoman (1979)

Trained for revenge, ‘The Heartless Lady’ (Chia Ling) is on a bloody mission to find her father’s killer. But she’s been framed for the murder of a prominent family and just about every assassin and fighter, righteous or nefarious stands in her way.

Revengeful Swordswoman is such a derivative and clumsily shot affair that no amount of oddball villains, esoteric weapons, or cheesy lines could spare it from well deserved and utter obscurity. But there is still some comedy value for lovers of bad cinema. For instance, Tai Seng’s edition begins very abruptly with a master (Wong Hap) pushing his poor student (Chia Ling) off a cliff as he incoherently yells at her. She lands safely just as a pack of wild dogs race madly towards her from nowhere. Before the viewer has time to even register what is happening, the scene is cut short and master and student are together again in another location with no further mention of this bizarre event. This sets the standard for everything that follows.

There is no lack of sought after genre content or notable stars. But the film shamelessly mines older Shaw Brothers flicks for material. A subplot which has nothing to do with the main story has the leading lady being framed for murder in the martial world. This rips from Golden Swallow, as does a character named ‘Golden Bird’ who leaves conspicuous darts behind as her calling card. Leading lady Chia Ling has an extended and thoroughly excessive dart tossing session with her. Most of the assassins out to kill Chia Ling as she wanders aimlessly looking for the man who killed her father are lifted right out of top SB films. Philip Ko Fei plays a one-armed boxer in reference to Jimmy Wang Yu’s turn as The One-Armed Boxer (1971) while another assassin swordsman wields a spinning sword identical to Ti Lung’s distinctive blade in The Magic Blade (1976).

There are also other unusual weapons like a whip with a hidden blade in the hilt. The zaniest are a pair of skulls that rest on actor Chuen Yuen’s shoulders. Magically he commands them to fly off and scratch his victims with unnoticeable sharp edges. Oh, they can also explode. Chia Lung only uses a short sword, or long dagger if you prefer. Yet she rarely wears it and leaves it up to her toady companion as played by Chang Chi-ping to toss it to her at just the right moment during battle. Sound effects that accompany the action such as bullet ricochets for thrown weapons are out of control, more so than usual for this genre.

The kung fu action is full of tricks and gimmicks, as is expected with a swordplay film. Chia Ling, a seasoned kung fu actress is impressive though and belts out plenty of flashy spinning kicks and manages large group combat nicely. Her character is also pretty ruthless for a heroine. Too bad the story is so convoluted in its attempt to mimic better films and create plot twists that its difficult to enjoy or even understand who she’s fighting or why. The attempt is unintentionally funny at times, as when Chia Ling begins fighting the Golden Bird and successive shots of three hidden onlookers who are unaware of each other’s presence, two of whom we know nothing about, are revealed. This sort of nonsense continues for the length of the film as Chia Ling battles one random fighter after another, followed by no less than four ’shocking’ plot revelations about the fate or identity of characters.

The makers of Revengeful Swordswoman seem convinced that more of every genre gimmick they are able to reproduce on a budget is good enough to overcome lack of any sensible, coherent story. But like so many inferior Taiwanese and independent kung fu movies, gimmicks aren’t enough. Bad filmmaking can ruin even the joy of shoulder-mounted, exploding skulls and that’s the real tragedy here.