The Desperate Chase (1971)

In a rare instance of a story and its characters driving Chinese martial arts action, ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN star Jimmy Wang Yu is a spear-wielding killing machine who befriends a young homeless boy tasked with delivering a vital document that could spell doom for rebel patriots if it ends up in the hands of Mongol invaders. Former actress Kao Pao-shu scripts and directs her second feature film, proving to be a highly capable martial arts moviemaker deftly able to bring her dramatic experience into the realm of stylized swordplay action, heavily inspired by the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone that is as bloody and bold as any Chang Cheh feature.

There are not many female writers and directors in martial arts cinema and Kao Pao-shu is something of an anomaly. Married to Shaw Brothers actor Chiang Nan, she came to fame as a character actress in the 1960s on hits like THE DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER and THE MONKEY GOES WEST, but also worked behind the scenes in the studio’s dubbing department before graduating to assistant director on films like THE YOUNGER GENERATION and THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS. She had her first directing credit on the Shaw Brothers wuxia classic LADY WITH A SWORD starring Lily Ho. It was released several months before her second feature which was an independent Taiwanese production. THE DESPERATE CHASE, or BLOOD OF THE DRAGON as it initially became known in the U.S., was also her third film working with Jimmy Wang Yu.

Having become Asia’s number one action star following the success of ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and THE CHINESE BOXER, Wang Yu had left the creatively stifling and penny-pinching environment of Shaw Brothers to work in Taiwan. This is where Wang Yu cranked out a hefty number of kung fu and wuxia films, generally more modest in production scale to his previous work at Shaw Brothers and his brief collaborations with Golden Harvest and overseas studios. Regardless, they bore Wang Yu’s epic brand of martial heroism that could best be described as a marriage between the macho anti-heroics introduced to martial arts cinema by Chang Cheh and a measure of charisma that Bruce Lee brought to the genre.

What sets THE DESPERATE CHASE apart from most of Wang Yu’s other independent films are the strong characters and relationships that exist between them. This is primarily evidenced by the relationship between veteran warrior Tai Long-ti (Wang Yu), better known as “The White Dragon” and a streetwise young beggar named Ni-chiu (Yau Lung). Kao uses this dynamic to force the hero to measure his pride against the value of loyalty and friendship. She also very nicely ties this in with Long-ti’s relationship with the film’s other martial hero, Prince Ma Tong (Yeung Yeung).

In the film, Long-ti has agreed to escort Ni-chiu on his mission to deliver a message from a dying man to the Prince after he thwarts an attempt by a Han traitor named Kang-fu (Lung Fei) and several underlings to steal the document which is kept in a bamboo tube. What complicates this mission is an old rivalry among members of the jiang hu, or martial underworld. Long-ti previously bested Ma Tong’s father in a duel as shown during the film’s exciting open credits. Fueled by a desire for revenge, Ma Tong doesn’t wait for Long-ti to explain himself and eventually gets the better of him with a “magical sword,” which is really a sword designed to trap his spear. The irony is that the two men are both brothers in arms, desiring the Chinese people to be free from the oppression of Mongol invaders, but they haven’t discovered this yet and nearly kill each other. It’s ultimately the intervention of Ni-chiu that brings these two men together just as they are forced to contend with a seemingly hopeless last stand against a Mongol general (Yee Yuen) and a small army.

Aside from the typically one-dimensional villains, the dramatic weak point in the film is the role played by Chiao Chiao, a screen beauty that previously played opposite Wang Yu in a number of wuxia films at Shaw Brothers. She plays a tea house innkeeper who is friends with the boy and falls in love with Long-ti but is otherwise inconsequential to the story. Her tea house is of far greater importance as the chief location for much of the film’s major conflict and Kao only allows her to get slapped around and reveal mere token affection for Long-ti.

There is much to praise and criticize in regards to the film’s hefty action. The film may be directed by a woman who began her career as a dramatic actress but she doesn’t shy away from heavy bloodletting and long-extended battle sequences. Chances are that when the fighting started Kao turned over control of the film to Wang Yu and action director Cheung Yee-kwai.

Despite a career that stretched over a decade, Cheung never distinguished himself as either a martial arts actor or action director and given his limited choreography credits, it’s hard to say how much creative control he actually had on this production. Given that he frequently worked with Wang Yu in years to come it’s likely that he worked closely with Wang Yu who had far more experience shooting action sequences under the highly capable direction of action legends like Tong Gai and Lau Kar-leung. Regardless of who ultimately is responsible for the action choreography, it is enormously fun to watch.

Esoteric weaponry and fighting techniques have always been defining elements of Wang Yu movies, beginning with ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN and culminating in MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE. Wang Yu looks as good as ever wielding his metal spear against a variety of villains, several of whom possess unusual weapons that have appeared in various forms in high-profile action films in the west. In addition to the aforementioned magic sword there is a spiked ball and chain that is used by Lung Fei. Lung is the guy some folks may remember as the effeminately-dubbed villain named “Betty” in Steve Oedekerk’s KUNG POW: ENTER THE FIST, a reedited spoof of TIGER AND CRANE FIST (1976), which incidentally starred Wang Yu. The weapon is a slightly downsized version of what Chiaki Kuriyama flung at Uma Thurman in KILL BILL: VOL. 1. O Yau-man, a rotund regular of Taiwan’s martial arts movie scene uses a more conventional three-section staff. The coolest weapon belongs to the film’s main villain as played by veteran genre heavy Yee Yuen. He uses a chain-whip sword that expands and retracts at will. It sounds cooler than it is in execution but for a 1971 film the props department did a helluva job in making it look like a genuine threat to Wang Yu. Anyone who has seen Christophe Gans’ BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF will see similarities in this sword to the bone chain-whip sword that Vincent Cassel attacks Samuel Le Bihan with.

Looking beyond the weaponry, the film’s action choreography is equal to the excellent group-oriented fight work that was being filmed at Shaw Brothers. It’s understandable given that many of the folks working on this film had also been working on SB wuxia films, either at the same time or just before production of this movie. Taiwanese filmmaking was also still at its peak in terms of quality genre output.

One interesting aspect of the fight scenes is the reticence of fighters, good or evil to kill one another outright. I’m not sure if it was a conscious decision or not but it seems as though the filmmakers were attempting to hold back on the severity of Wang Yu’s engagements in order to enhance the film’s climatic bloodbath. As bad as the bad guys are, they seem more reasonable than you’re typical sword-wielding baddies. There’s also a sense of greater respect for the skill of opponents. Too often, we see wuxia films where mindless thugs throw themselves at obviously skilled heroes with reckless abandon. Honestly, if I were one of these “red shirts” I would be far less willing to attack a foe who had just killed most of my associates. After getting a non-lethal taste of White Dragon’s spear, the lesser villains camp outside the tea house where he’s staying to await reinforcements and General Tai. They readily admit they’re outmatched and try to use superior numbers.

There’s an added bit of story brilliance that contributes to the tension and uncertainty of Lung-ti’s eventual showdown. He’s wounded when Ma Tong stabs him in the back. Without this device, its doubtful anyone could beat him, but with it any outcome is possible.

The last 20 minutes is a nearly non-stop action feast as Wang Yu and Yeung Yeung take on an army. The individual choreography is spectacular while the peripheral choreography comes up lacking in the same fashion as what was produced at Shaw Brothers at the time. Stunt extras do what I like to call the swordplay shuffle and hop back and forth in the background in an attempt to make the fight look more dynamic than it really is. This doesn’t diminish from the genuinely dynamic aerial action as Wang Yu bounds around, knocking enemies to and fro.

There is one action shot that I see in a lot of films from this era that always puzzles me. It’s a reverse shot of a guy falling out of a tree. The gimmick is that it looks like the hero knocks his adversary straight up into a tree limb. It’s a cheap way of showing the kind of power reactions that advanced wire pulls from the likes of Yuen Woo-ping more expertly achieves today.

The film’s production is sparing with most of the story set around an inn. The original Chinese score is made up of rousing orchestral marches, likely either taken from stock libraries or stolen from foreign film scores. The latter is more likely the case. At one point some James Bond theme music can be heard. For its 1973 theatrical release in the U.S., a group or individual called “Flood” provided a truly awful rock soundtrack that sounds amateurish and undermines much of the tension and excitement that the film is attempting to generate.

THE DESPERATE CHASE is one of a handful of Chinese period martial arts films that feels more robust and satisfying than your typical wuxia or chop socky feature. Although not quite representative of the very best wuxia films around, it is one of Wang Yu’s best works outside of his major studio films. It is a film I personally enjoy very much, which is not always the case for martial arts movies that I consider to be well made or good representations of the genre. The film provides an excellent showcase for Wang Yu’s talents and it fits very nicely alongside other story-driven actioners like HEROES TWO, THE FLYING GUILLOTINE and SECRET SERVICE OF THE IMPERIAL COURT. ALONG COMES A TIGER, starring Don Wong, is a lesser kung fu movie from Taiwan that shares similar Spaghetti Western themes and plot points that may also be of interest.

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