Eagle Claw clan member To Pa (Ma Kei) leads a gang of bandits in robbing an imperial gold shipment protected by the Lightning Whipper (Yeung Lit). The Whipper gets whipped in the process. To avenge his death, his son Chen Yi-chung (Chiang Ming) and daughter Yu-lan (Cheung Ching-ching) set out to find the killer. Pa’s disapproving martial brother Lei Pong (Yee Yuen) attempts to return the gold to the authorities, but is instead accused of having stolen it. To get the gold back, Pa wipes out Pong’s entire family, save for his son who is rescued by the heroic last stand of his uncle (Mo Man-hung) and the intervention of a wandering swordswoman in white.
Yi-chung and Yu-lan bust Pong out of prison and begin searching for Pa and the gold. After discovering that Pong is on the loose, Pa hires the martial world’s most ruthless killers; the Solar Ray of Death with his golden discs of explosive doom, the Soul Picker with his flying twin crescent swords, the Dragon Razor with his animal claws of death, the Vampire Phantoms, and the near-invincible One Man Army (Chen Hung-lieh) with his razor sharp hat and six-arm sword array. If the heroes survive this onslaught, they’ll still have to face Pa himself who wields the sword-shattering Devil Rippers!
The situation understandably looks grim, especially when Pong is tossed over a cliff to his doom. But a kung fu master who has created the ultimate in Tang Dynasty-era bionic limbs, spring-loaded, chain-retractable and equipped with deadly blades, only needs someone to fall off a cliff and break a leg and arm to make them the most powerful bionic swordsman in the martial world!
Okay, if you haven’t guessed it yet, with a plot like this Fearless Fighters is B-movie dynamite of the highest grade and ready to explode in your face like a fireworks factory in a firestorm. The story as described is in part a whirling wuxia premise from an obscure Taiwanese flick called Hero of Heroes and part creative invention by U.S. distributors Ellman Film Enterprises. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and to give endless over-the-top action appropriately over-the-top labels.
The film is one of the first wuxia pian released to American theaters, having made the circuit in 1973 when Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon blew the kung fu genre wide open. It’s also one of the craziest wuxia films ever made and I can say that with a measure of certainty after having seen a fair share to date.
Fearless Fighters is filled with fearless actors of great skill in everything that counts in a highly stylized wuxia pian. Basically, they know how to strike the coolest poses and I mean cool. John Travolta couldn’t look as good sheathing a sword between disco dance moves. But sure, go ahead and dismiss this is as frivolous and trite in comparison to the incomparable acrobatic mastery of Yuen Biao for instance. But ask Ching Siu-tung, the man who could even make a wash-up like Steven Seagal look marginally respectable, and he’ll set you straight.
The standout performance belongs to the director Mo Man-hung, who unleashes a flurry of dynamic moves in a mid-film heroic bloodshed standoff. Fighting femme Cheung Ching-ching holds her own with sword in hand in some impressive long takes against multiple foes. The rest of the actors including leads Yee Yuen and Chiang Ming owe most of their screen fighting mastery to the snappy direction and editing.
As far as independent martial arts movies from Taiwan go, Fearless Fighters is about as good as it gets, excepting the films of King Hu, of course. The filmmakers make good use of many distinctive locales, have a large array of unique weapons and colorful costumes, and pull off a lot of technically-challenging wirework with some degree of skill.
The cinematography and editing are extremely proficient in enhancing the characters’ martial abilities and framing them in the best way possible. There is an unusually high amount of varying angles and placements including overhead shots, dramatic close-ups, rapid zooms, and smooth panning. There is definitely real skill behind the camera that should be acknowledged, even if one doesn’t care for the extreme craziness it captures.
The available English-dubbed audio track was put together by Ellman Film Enterprises and is of high quality. It contains an energetic, stock orchestral score and elaborate foley effects.
The film itself was cut down to remove some dialogue scenes and blood and guts that in 1973 was deemed too graphic to make the R rating it eventually received. I’m usually the first to complain about someone messing with a martial arts movie, but not if the end product is as good or better than the original.
I can’t speak for the lost original, but this American version is very well structured apart from a clipped and misunderstood scene where Yee Yuen is given his artificial limbs after he is thrown over the cliff. But Richard Brummer’s English-dub script effortlessly ties this plot tangent back into the main plot with some invented nonsense about a ghost of the dead Lightning Whipper. Honestly, viewers worried about mangled context in this version will miss the point. This film has been repackaged for maximum entertainment value at minimum cost to brain power and sometimes that’s good enough.
For those who find Crouching Tiger pretentious, Ashes of Time a confusing bore and House of Flying Daggers only worth watching with a finger hovering over the fast forward button, your Holy Grail of straight forward, non-stop cheese-infested martial arts insanity has arrived. Fearless Fighters falls somewhere between the excessive camp violence of Invincible Super Chan and the creative wirework and weapons combat of Duel to the Death, minus the often convoluted filler that keeps viewers with short attention spans away from wuxia pian.
Solar Ray discs cause explosions around our heroes. Fly-by-wire weapons zip across the screen in full view (the wires are also occasionally in full view) and characters can be seen rocketing across a teahouse interior or across the surface of a lake.
Nearly every conventional camera and editing trick available is put to use including reverse shooting, manic zooming to enhance movement and double exposures to give Chen Hung-lieh the illusion of sprouting extra sword-wielding arms. Undercranking to speed the action is out of control in every scene and hidden trampolines are seemingly placed everywhere for characters to bounce around on in every direction.
In other films many of these elements would be considered negative factors, especially when used as much as they are here. But all of this action nonsense is so extreme, persistent and dynamically interchanged that it becomes the main reason to keep watching.
Fearless Fighters is the perfect martial arts B movie to take center stage at a late night screening party with friends and family. Bizarre weapons combat, oddball character names, humorous dubbing, fast pacing, and engaging direction all combine to create more fun than a teahouse full of blond-haired, bear claw-wielding super goons.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Fearless Fighters (1971) • swordplay • Wuxia
