Tales of a Eunuch (1983)

Screwball black humor, imperial court intrigue and moderate doses of spitfire kung fu action collide in this fast-talking comedy actioner guaranteed to make even Hong Kong movie aficionados’ heads spin.

Like Wong Jing’s Royal Tramp series starring Stephen Chow, Tales of a Eunuch is based on The Duke of Mount Deer, a popular wuxia novel by Louis Cha. Unlike many of his more high-minded efforts, the central protagonist of this story is nothing more than an opportunistic, bastard son of a whore, who finds himself in the right place at the right time.

Lau Kar-leung protege and kung fu comedy actor Wang Yu is well suited to play Siu-bao, a spirited young man during the Qing Dynasty stuck doing menial labor at a brothel where his mother is employed, while hustling gamblers on the side. A chance encounter with a Ming rebel on the run from Imperial soldiers leads him to the Empire’s capital where he winds up replacing a steward to a eunuch and kung fu master (Ku Feng) he has just blinded. From here, Siu-bo becomes known as Eunuch Siu Guei-tzu and begins using his smarts to outwit his new master, befriend the Emperor (Gordon Liu), keep the amorous affections of the Emperor’s sister at bay, and uncover a plot to steal a valuable kung fu manual that involves just about everyone.

Director Hua Shan squeezes an enormous amount of material into 90 minutes and this is where the film fails. Hua ploughs through the story like a madman, hardly stopping to let his actors take a breath or finish a sentence before switching scenes. The manic pace probably suits the fast-talking Cantonese humor that the film displays, but it doesn’t make it any easier to digest when you don’t speak the language or know the source material. Much of the intended humor doesn’t really translate, nor is it consistent. The film contains a number of gruesome and callous moments of extreme violence that could be likened to moments in Kung Fu Hustle, where the extreme nature of the violence itself is meant to illicit laughs, but due to the pacing it’s more likely to create dumbstruck awe.

Most of Tales of a Eunuch is made up of juvenile comic scenarios accompanied by equally oddball music and effects. Some are crude like Siu-bo’s mother attending to a fat man in the brothel, some violent like a rescuer’s sword blade flying off the handle with bloody results, and some just plain nutty such as when the Emperor’s sister “flirts” with Siu-bo by beating him senseless with a stick and threatening to gouge his eyes out.

The film is definitely a comedy first and a kung fu movie second. Part of the central plot involves a scramble for an obscure kung fu manual, but it’s just an otherwise irrelevant “McGuffin.” Wang Yu’s character is not meant to be a kung fu hero, although he learns a few techniques along the way. If he isn’t getting bested by Gordon Liu in friendly bouts, then he’s hiding from the murderous clutches of a blind Ku Feng or the Empress, who happens to be a pretty mean brawler herself. The movie has a talented stunt crew led by Tang Chia to bolster the action and there are a few slick moves her and there, but like everything else it moves too frantically to be appreciated.

There are some fun moments in the film and it gets a little easier to take in as the plot develops. This is, however, not a movie that plays well to foreign audiences in general. Nor is there enough kung fu action to fill in the cultural gaps. Its humor and pacing presumes too much with regard to its intended local audience and this, more than anything, leaves the rest of us out in the cold, trying to pick up blood-soaked banana peels.