Golden Swallow (1968)
Golden Swallow revolves around the further adventures of its title character. This time around, she is forced into violence when a figure from her mysterious past goes on a killing rampage while leaving evidence that holds her responsible. Golden Swallow also makes room for a love triangle involving a mad, but righteous, swordsman named Silver Roc and a gentle warrior named Golden Whip. The three team up to conquer the evil forces of the martial world, but their joint venture only lasts so long, due to the two men's egos. Ultimately, a duel to the death is planned between them, leaving Golden Swallow caught between two men, both of whom she admires.
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Just perfect...
Captivating movie !
Absolutely Brilliant!
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Kung-fu at its innovative best and one of the finest the genre has to offer. The Shaw Brothers produced "Golden Swallow" mixes a melancholy romance with violent martial arts caught by its handsomely earthy direction and inventively novel camera placement during the excitingly expansive set-pieces. The dazzling imagery in some sequences is marvellously projected, like the vigorous fighting craftsmanship in the woods and the vivid colour plateau accompanying it. The arresting sword fights are quick, ruthless and meticulous without a drop of sweat being spilt however blood is plentiful in its many awesome showdowns! The story's groundwork is quite simple, but well-told with its ominous edge and suitably paced even though I did find some of the editing in between sequences to be rather jumpy. The score is kinetic, but elegantly impulsive. There are illustratively able performances from the likes of Pei-pei Cheng (who provides one strong character), Yu Wang, Lieh Lo, Hsin Yen Chao and Chia-Liang Liu. Wang is quite memorable as the unstoppably cold-blooded warrior Silver Roc that really has a bone to pick, while in the quest to find his true love.
Released in the Philippines with the title: The Golden Swallow,the film follows a well worn formula in Chinese swordplay movies. The character of Jimmy Wang Yu has a formidable secret fighting method called the Dragon's Flight or whatnot. He executes it with a high flying leap and slashes too quick for the eye to follow. Unfortunately, his arch-enemy has devised a formula counter-attack called The Dragon's Convulsion.Always in immaculate white with a gleaming silver sword (he is Silver Roc, after all), the reed thin and handsome Wang Yu is at his prime in this movie. He pines for his lost love, a female swordfighter called Golden Swallow. The last scenes where a seriously wounded Wang Yu fights to the last is one of the best choreographed swordplay scenes ever.
I first saw this movie when I was 16 years old back in the 1970's during the kung fu craze. Our local cinema in Swindon showed a Kung Fu movie every Sunday and me and my mates used to go down and sneak in the back door and watch the latest flick.I remember this movies as "Girl with the thunderbolt kick", but that's a terrible title as she doesn't have much of a kick, and most of the film centers around the male lead rather than "Golden Swallow".Nevertheless the film is truly magnificent, with wonderful panoramic shots, excellent fight sequences and a story that is easy to follow.After searching high and low for the film years ago, I gave up, but luckily for me Celestrial Pictures purchased the whole of the Shaw Brothers Back catalogue and has now started to release these great Kung Fu movies that were thought gone for ever. A search on Ebay discovered "Golden Swallow" was available, and a week later I am watching a fully restored, digitally enhanced DVD with a crystal clear 1:235 widescreen classic.The quality looks like it was filmed in the last couple of years, not the mid 1960's.Grab yourself a copy, get a beer out of the fridge, sit back and have 100 great minutes of entertainment.
THE GIRL WITH THE THUNDERBOLT KICK (aka GOLDEN SWALLOW, 1968) is a Shaw Bros. costume swordplay drama notable for co-starring the studio's top male action star, Jimmy Wang Yu, with the studio's then-reigning swashbuckling diva Cheng Pei Pei (THE THUNDERING SWORD). Wang Yu plays the notorious killer Silver Roc and Cheng plays his childhood sweetheart Golden Swallow, whom he hasn't seen in years (a reprise of a character the same actress played in King Hu's COME DRINK WITH ME, 1966). Golden Swallow follows Roc's trail of blood and is accompanied by Golden Whip Hand (Lo Lieh), who is in love with her but helps her track down Silver Roc. Midway through the film they all meet, but Silver Roc quickly challenges Whip Hand to a duel after the latter condemns Roc for an earlier instance of cold-blooded killing. That's pretty much the whole plot and it takes a long time getting to the final duel. This film has its fans but it doesn't hold up as well as such other Wang Yu vehicles of the 1960s as ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, and THE ASSASSIN. There are plenty of swordfights here, but they're fairly stylized, with lots of leaping around, twirling of swords, soft blows, and unconvincing fighting skills. Cheng Pei Pei has great screen presence, but she's more of a dancer than a fighter. There's an undertone of unrequited love that's rather poignant at times. Following this film Wang Yu turned to a harder-edged brand of martial arts film with THE CHINESE BOXER (1970), generally considered the first pure kung fu film.The video transfer available in this country has Cantonese dialogue dubbed over the original Mandarin soundtrack, which remains slightly audible. The transfer is full-screen, cutting off the widescreen subtitles on the sides, making some of the dialogue difficult to decipher. The Cantonese sound mix includes music cues lifted from John Barry's soundtrack for the James Bond film YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and awkwardly plastered in over the very lovely original music track.