After the Ming Emperor is overthrown and his infant son put in the care of the Black Dragon Society, a traitorous martial arts clan attacks the society and forces two inexperienced swordsmen to flee with the infant and begin a dangerous journey in search of allies.

Writer-director Lo Wei was thinking big when he produced Raw Courage, his second to last swordplay feature of 1969, right behind The Golden Sword. It features just about every inch of Shaw Brothers’ famous outdoor backlot on Clearwater Bay and then some. It’s also packed with large-scale battles made up of hundreds of swordsmen and a simple, yet engaging story that just about anyone could pick up. It’s one of SB’s last great swordplay films from Hong Kong’s Golden Era. This is the kind of production the studio moved away from in the ’70s after emerging from a bitter battle with rival Cathay to become the region’s dominant movie studio. With subsequent swordplay movies, they increasingly favored elaborate, yet artificial indoor sets, smaller casts of contract players and condensed soap opera drama inspired by complex and sprawling swordplay novels.

Right from the fiery opening credits that seemingly borrow from Bonanza, Raw Courage shows the strengths of Lo Wei as a martial arts filmmaker, as it maintains a fast pace through an adventurous and action-packed plot with leading stars Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua displayed in top form. Cheng is Shangguan Xiuyi, the daughter of the Black Dragon Society leader (Lo Wei) who is charged with the task of safely escorting the infant son of the recently overthrown Emperor out of enemy territory and into the hands of allies. Aiding Xiuyi is her cousin Jin Zhenxiang (Ng Fung) who harbors hidden feelings for her. However, both heroes are inexperienced in the martial world and quickly come to rely on the valuable aid of a free-spirited and knowledgeable swordsman named Zhou Feiyun (Yueh Hua) who is ordered to escort them to the allied White Dragon Society by his master who poses an as old beggar (Yeung Chi-hing). As the trio sneak and fight their way past enemy checkpoints and traps, a jealous rivalry threatens to tear apart the heroes as Zhenxiang increasingly sees the smarter and more chivalrous Feiyun as an obstacle in his affections for Xiuyi. They have even greater threats to deal with however, as a hidden enemy in command of many men awaits and a monstrous old martial arts master with skills far above their own closes in.

Forget about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers, Raw Courage is the kind of swordplay movie that gets my blood pumping. There is nothing like seeing two or three heroes surrounded by hundreds of color-coded swordsmen battling in formation. The body count in this movie is easily in the hundreds as Cheng Pei-pei, Yueh Hua and Ng Fung slice and stab their way through countless villains. Of course, numbers aren’t everything. It’s excellent choreography from Simon Chui, the man responsible for orchestrating the memorable carnage in The Flying Guillotine (1974), along with Lo Wei’s direction that keeps the steady violence interesting. It also helps that Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua were easily two of the studio’s most talented stars at the time. In numerous scenes, Cheng cuts a wide swath through multiple attackers with twelve or fifteen furiously elegant movements unedited. Yueh brings the same playful charm and athleticism he famously displayed as the Monkey King in The Monkey Goes West to this role. Meanwhile, elder character actor Yeung Chi-hing delivers a standout performance as a playful Old Beggar and senior kung fu master among the film’s heroes, even though some of his action scenes are doubled. The only one not carrying his weight in my opinion is the lesser-known Ng Fung who just seems uncomfortable in his own skin, let alone his role that he walks through with little skill apart from adequate sword slinging.

Lo Wei really had a way of creating characters and scenarios that connect with audiences. Despite being over thirty-five years old and possessing some of the minor foibles that go with Hong Kong movies of that era including repetitive sound loops, old-fashioned posturing and simplistic heroism, Raw Courage is still very entertaining and represents some of the best swordplay action of the ’60s or ’70s.

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