Golden Swallow

金燕子

Hong Kong, 1968, colour, 2.35:1, 108 mins.

Director: Zhang Che 张彻.

Rating: 8/10.

One of the best of Shaw Brothers’ mythic swordplay dramas, winning over its audience by sheer self-conviction.

STORY

Ancient China. Martial artists Golden Swallow (Zheng Peipei) and her lover Han Tao (Luo Lie) live in peaceful Evergreen Valley. They then learn that Xiao Peng, aka Silver Roc (Wang Yu), an old colleague of Swallow, has become a bandit-killer. In fact, Xiao Peng is in love with Golden Swallow and has been leaving darts that look like hers besides the bodies of his victims in order to draw her out of seclusion. After Xiao Peng destroys a fortress belonging to Wang Xiong (Yang Zhiqing), head of the Grand Dragon order, Wang Xiong vows vengeance on Golden Swallow, thinking her responsible. Han Tao and Xiao Peng meet to settle their differences over Golden Swallow, but she intervenes. When Wang Xiong attacks Golden Swallow, Han Tao joins the battle but fails to apprehend Wang Xiong. Subsequently, Han Tao and Xiao Peng agree to duel over Golden Swallow; but she hears about the contest from Mei Niang (Zhao Xinyan), a prostitute who is in love with Xiao Peng, and rushes to stop it. The two women arrive at the same time; but so also does Wang Xiong.

REVIEW

Amongst female kung fu stars so far seen in Britain [as of mid-1974], Zheng Peipei 郑佩佩 can be fairly said here to equal the performance by Mao Ying 茅瑛 [Angela Mao] in Hap Ki Do 合气道 (1972). Quite the most attractive lead to emerge from Hong Kong (discounting the non-combatant Miao Kexiu 苗可秀 [Nora Miao]), she possesses an outdoor, lithely Amazonic persona which, at a trice, can be transformed into either frantic aggression or soft femininity. Director Zhang Che 张彻 acknowledges this duality, providing several fiercely claustrophobic combat scenes (in the inn, on the steps) as well as one sequence in which, dewy-eyed, she momentarily sheds her masculine clothing and lets her up-coiled hair spill on to her shoulders. Golden Swallow 金燕子 [released in the UK as The Girl with the Thunderbolt Kick, six years after opening in Hong Kong] is one of Shaw Brothers’ very best works, a film which, with its mass slaughter and tightly-strung plot, wins its audience over by dint of sheer self-conviction.

The biggest, and most misleading fault, lies in its English release title: originally called Golden Swallow, the film is in fact more concerned with Xiao Peng than the Zheng Peipei character, and at no time does she show the slightest interest in kicking techniques. Golden Swallow’s speciality is fighting with two dagger-like short swords, while Xiao Peng (“Silver Roc”) is described as the master of the Flying Leap With Downward Thrust – “like a giant eagle”.

From the very start it is made clear that Xiao Peng is the heroic figure of the film, and there are several script parallels throughout with The Blood Brothers 刺马 (1973) [released in the UK as Chinese Vengeance]: though Xiao Peng is the better fighter, he has fallen under the fatal spell of hubris, and abuses his fighting talents by using them towards his own ends. By killing scores of bandits and leaving a Golden Swallow pin near his victims, he hopes to find once more his beloved (Zheng Peipei), who, unknown to him, now lives peacefully with her lover Han Tao in Evergreen Valley. It is the simplest of morality tales, invested with all the magical, super-mythic atmosphere one expects of Shaw productions. Little time is spent on useless dialogue or filling in plot lacunae: everything that is immaterial to the central development of Xiao Peng’s journey to his final transfiguration is ruthlessly excluded. [The English-dubbed version reviewed was only 88  minutes long, 20 minutes shorter than the original.] Typically, we never see him actually expire: after ferocious slaughter at the end (compare Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan 爱奴, 1972), with gaping wounds in stomach and arms, he triumphantly stands astride a mound over the bodies of the villain’s heavies, wearing daggers in his chest like candles on a birthday cake. Director Zhang Che dissolves from this striking image (Xiao Peng crying, “I knew I was the best”) to a golden sun.

The pessimism of Shaw productions is here in abundance. Xiao Peng loses Golden Swallow, despite and because of his Machiavellian behaviour, to Han Tao, though not before Swallow realises she does not truly love Han. The two survivors are therefore left permanently changed by Xiao Peng’s actions. The film ends as it began – in Evergreen Valley – but Han Tao and Swallow decide on a mutual parting. The Ennio Morricone-ish love motif, which reappears throughout on a solo trumpet, exactly fits the picture’s tragic dimensions, while great care is taken with the colours of characters’ costmes: white (and gold) for Golden Swallow, blue for Han Tao, and all-white for Xiao Peng. As in The Deaf and Mute Heroine 聋哑剑 (1971) evocative use is made of gently-swaying long grass to show the tranquility of Swallow and Han Tao’s life in Evergreen Valley. Somewhere along the line a song seems to have been lost from the soundtrack (credited to the director, Zhang Che), but nevertheless, the film shows imagination and invention (albeit rather basic at times) at every level. The pre-credit use of “split-screen” – actually just masks placed in front of the lens – is the first use I have come across of this process being used to give a sense of “things remembered” to past events.

CREDITS

Presented by Shaw Brothers (HK). Produced by Shaw Brothers (HK).

Script: Zhang Che, Du Yunzhi. Photography: Bao Xueli. Editing: Jiang Xinglong. Music: Wang Fuling. Lyrics: Zhang Che. Art direction: Chen Qirui. Sound: Wang Yonghua. Action: Tang Jia, Liu Jialiang.

Cast: Wang Yu [Jimmy Wang] (Xiao Peng/Silver Roc), Zheng Peipei (Xie Ruyan/Golden Swallow), Luo Lie (Han Tao/Golden Whip), Zhao Xinyan (Mei Niang), Yang Zhiqing (Wang Xiong/Poison Dragon), Jing Miao (Cao Tianlong), Wu Ma (Hu Zhen), Lin Jiao (Wang Pao), Tang Di (Cao Tianfeng, Cao Tianlong’s brother), He Bin (Wang Fu), Gu Feng (Zhang Shun), Liu Gang (Li Wan).

Release: Hong Kong, 4 Apr 1968.

(Review section originally published in UK monthly films and filming, Sep 1974, as The Girl with the Thunderbolt Kick. Modern annotations in square brackets.)