What's good folks?! Hai! Karate returns with another film for you fans to check out, especially during Women's History Month! This go-round, we're going to take a look at one film from the career of screen legend Cheng Pei-Pei, The Shadow Whip!! Done in 1971, this film from the Shaw Brothers Studios is directed by the master Lo Wei. Pei-Pei appears in this film with Yueh Hua, Tien Feng, Ku Feng and Lee Kwan at the forefront of the cast. This is a significant film, and I'll explain why later on. But let's get to the meat of the movie...
The Shadow Whip opens up to the audience depicting
the countryside covered in snow. We see a caravan heading
out for the town of Dafeng, at the behest of Miss Xu(Pei-Pei)
and led by Er Sha Zi(Kwan) who is singing as they ride
along. It's a cheerful way to begin a film. The fun soon
gets disrupted by three shadowy men riding through at a
clip, nearly knocking Er Sha off the cart. You'd think
that would be the end of it, but once they hit town and
stop in at a tavern, Er Sha sees them. The three are known
as 'The Serial Trio', ruthless mugs of the martial world.
Serial as in 'serial killers'. Er Sha boldly challenges
them - and as its been stated on this site before, Lee
Kwan being in a picture is for pure comic relief. The
trio(Wang Hsieh, Lee Ka-Ting ad To Man-Bo)take him up
on it and proceed to thrash him until the wandering knight
Wang Jianxin(Hua) steps in. Miss Xu also winds up stepping
in, and displays her fighting style - a heavy whip that
she uses to take out one of the trio. All is cleared up
by the tavern boss, who up to this point was observing
the fight alongside Chief Hong(Feng).
Jianxin is highly impressed, and wants to know where Miss
Xu learned that skill. There's an underlying motive here,
of course. It turns out that Miss Xu is the niece of
Fang Changtian(Tien Feng), who makes the nearby Red
Pine Village his home. What she doesn't know, and what
Jianxin deduces, is that he is the legendary martial
warrior known as the Shadow Whip. Jianxin is out to seek
revenge against him. To add to the mystery, Chief Hong
is suddenly wondering about Miss Xu and her uncle, and
enlists the help of the Serial Trio. There are secrets
to be admitted to, and many fights ahead for Miss Xu...
The Shadow Whip is a significant film because this would
be the next to last film that Cheng Pei-Pei did for Shaw
as a leading actress in a fighting role. She would leave
Hong Kong to live in San Francisco and open a dance studio.
She'd return to do two more films, but they would be for
Raymond Chow's Golden Harvest studios. She may have left
upon seeing the shift being placed on younger actresses
and more noticeably, a leaning by Shaw towards films with
male action leads that brought in bigger box office profits.
Whatever the case, Pei-Pei does well here, especially when
it comes to the whip. You have to marvel at just how well
she wields it in fight scenes. And you have to wince for
those actors and stuntmen who were on the receiving end.
The film itself, has its ups and downs. While Yueh Hua and
Chang Pei-Pei had enjoyed a great chemistry onscreen dating
back to the smash hit Come Drink With Me, here it's muted.
Yueh Hua winds up being the nice wandering hero, but there
doesn't seem to be too much electricity. Ku Feng as Chief
Hong does his duty as a sinister figure, and Tien Feng is
decent as the Shadow Whip. The film moves along in a plodding
fashion, but it livens up thanks to the fighting scenes
and the latter 30 minutes of the film, when all is revealed
to Miss Xu in an interesting fashion - via a comic book-like
scroll. Another note about the action - there's actually a
LOT of blood spilled here, enough that the film has a video
depicting the kill count. Lo Wei makes a guest appearance,
as he often did in his films. Here, it is a vital part of
the story, For those who love Pei-Pei's films, this would
kind of fall near the waning part of her catalog, but it
does make for some entertaining viewing.
RATING: 3 OF 5 DRAGON PUNCHES
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