Reviewed by:
Goldenswallow Classic 80's Taiwanese swordplay from Au Yeung Wang.
I couldn’t make out all of the burnt in subtitles because of my cropped version so I’m slightly unclear about some of the finer aspects of the story - Basically years in the past Ching Paang's mother and father were murdered by a group of evil masters who were trying to get hold of his ‘Golden Key’. Apparently when used in conjunction with the six other Golden Keys (belonging to the masters) they can be used to open a tomb who’s treasures will allow the owner to rule the martial world. Luckily the young Chin Paang is allowed to escape and is rescued by Wong Hap (who owns one of the keys but is opposed to the group of masters who also tried to kill him) and trained up in many different weapons which can help him get revenge. Most of the film concentrates on the now grown up Ching Paang and his quest for vengeance with many intrigues along the way.
This is the kind of film that really floats my boat with colourful characters and wall to wall fantastical 80’s swordplay action. The cast might not be too well known with the exception of Wong Hap but they are all pretty good, I haven’t seen much of Ching Paang before (apart from in Sword of Justice which should be recommendation enough) but he was good enough to deserve more leading man roles - especially in terms of his fighting skills which he demonstrated almost constantly through the film. His gimmick (apart from his flute that he played eerily before a killing like Jade Raksha) was a bag of different weapons, this was a nice touch because it added a bit of variety to the action as he needed to use different weapons to counter different opponents. It was Wong Hap who really stole the show though as far as I’m concerned even though he’s only in the film for about ten minutes. At first I wasn’t too happy to see him turn up to lend a hand in the big final fight as I tend to think of him as a bit of a swingy arm merchant but he was absolutely awesome as he worked himself into a crazed killing frenzy like a total maniac. Obviously it took a bit of body doubling for his more acrobatic moves but who cares really, it was a very dynamic, fun and action packed finale - the perfect ending to a great film.
If I’ve got any negative comments maybe there was one too many unecessary twists in the plot but it’s not really a serious complaint, even with only 50% of the subtitles the story was still enjoyable and easy to follow. The tone of the film was spot on for my tastes - not too convoluted and quite dark in places, with enough awesome 80’s style swordplay action to keep any fan happy. I just wish I had the FLK widescreen version!
8/10
