The Sword Stained with Royal Blood (1981)

Why so much hype?

The Worst Film Ever

Best movie of this year hands down!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

THE SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD is another outing for director Chang Cheh and his Venoms cast, but this one's a little different to the rest. It's based on a famous wuxia novel by Louis Cha which has been filmed plenty of times in Hong Kong over the years, so the plotting is much more dense than usual and, dare I say it, a bit disjointed. Phillip Kwok plays a loyalist hero whose discovery of the skeleton of a famous adventurer named the Golden Snake kicks off a story of intrigue, suspense, and murder.The only real problem this film has is with the writing, so unfortunately it's quite a dominant one. There's too much plot for the running time. It starts off okay, with some particularly great and memorable scenes in the cave with the skeleton and the booby-trapped chest. Kwok dominates the screen with his bravado (one of the reasons I love the guy, the other being his excellent fighting form) and all goes pretty well until the second half, where the story is bogged down by having too many characters (including the extraneous mother role) and interminable flashbacks which really slow down the momentum of the present-day storyline.It's a pity, because THE SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD has all of the trademarks of the Shaw Brothers studio at its very best. Cheh directs with class and professionalism and the film looks fantastic, a good mix between the clean and bright Shaw martial arts films of the 1970s and the more atmospheric, horror and fantasy-tinged Shaws of the 1980s. He's also assembled a fantastic all-star cast, including roles for rival Venoms Wang Li, Chiang Sheng, and Lu Feng, alongside popular actor Chan Shen and actresses Wen Hsueh-Erh (very convincing as a spoilt brat), Ching Li, and Kara Hui. I was a little sore when I realised that Chiang Sheng and Lu Feng have quite minor henchman roles here and don't get to do very much until the climax.As for the action, it's very good as always, although there's less of it than usual, particularly in the first half. Cheh goes for the gory bloodshed approach here with some limb-lopping shocks and surprises, but the only real large-scale action is at the very end. After a few solid displays of skills and styles, the last fifteen minutes is a rip-roaring and madcap display of abilities and one vs. many madness, and it manages to reinvigorate the story and end it on a real high.

Like most kung fu films, we lose a lot in translation, but we get the gist of a young hero learning ways to fight powerful evil people.Here, we're not sure for a while who the evil ones will be. In fact, the hero is played by an actor who often plays bad guys.Here, he is a very likable chap, and he meets a girl who is very stubborn and has a bad temper. That's what makes the film as good as it is. The two leads are very charming and charismatic.The acrobatics and constant gymnastics are what often become tedious in these films. Here, they are more than tedious. We stick through this crazy choreography, though, because of the charisma of the two lead characters.Fortunately, although our hero ends up having to fight 5 kung fu artists by himself, he is not totally alone, as two family members are there to make sure the "henchmen" don't interfere. They have a brief battle of their own. A mute servant also adds to the appeal, as does some very stylistic settings, including a cave of danger with an Indiana Jones atmosphere.All in all, very watchable, although the tedious fight scenes are a bit of a drag. In this film, it is the drama in between that salvages it.

After watching the rather silly 36th Chamber trilogy this weekend, it was refreshing to finally see The Sword Stained with Royal Blood, which represents what I loved best from the Shaw Brothers era. Chang Cheh was by far my favorite director, the Vemon Mob folks were so extremely talented, and I loved the more serious and great stories that were being told in their movies. The story seems to jump around a lot early on, but it all comes together quite well by the end. Kuo Chui carries the film as usual and is excellent. Loved the sequence early on of him discovering the cave, though I have no idea why he went there in the first place. A lot of great action and I still just think these are so well made and better than the rest. Though I admit I'm pretty crazy about all the Shaw Brothers movies.

THE SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD (1981) is a convoluted tale of the martial world adapted by screenwriter Ni Kuang from a novel by Louis Cha (Jin Yong) that has been adapted for film and TV both before and since. There was a film version called SWIFT SWORD (1980) done a year earlier, also at Shaw Bros.; a TV series done in 1985; and a wire-fu version starring Yuen Biao made in 1993. It's evident from this film that a lot of plot has been condensed and packed into 104 minutes. Things move fast and there's an awful lot of detail to take in, much of it complicated by frequent flashbacks. It has less action and more talk than usual. Until the big fight finale, most of the fights tend to be short bouts, either friendly ones or tests of opponents' skills.The plot has to do with a young martial artist, Yuan (Kuo Chui), the son of a slain Ming general, who has trained in isolation for 18 years and gets hold of a treasure map and rare kung fu manual left in a cave by the now-dead Golden Snake. Yuan then follows the instructions left with the map and visits the Wen family in search of a woman named Wen Yi. He is befriended by Wen Qing, another young martial artist, and becomes "sworn brothers" with him, little knowing that Qing is really Wen Yi's daughter who eventually reveals herself as a beautiful teenage girl. There is a matter of stolen gold that pits members of Yuan's own school, the Hua Shan school, against the Wen family. Yuan is in the awkward position of having to mediate between warring factions, but manages to do so quite skillfully. When he shows off the techniques he learned from the manual found with the treasure map, he arouses the Wen patriarch's suspicions. Those techniques were the sole province of Golden Snake, Wen Yi's lover, and the father of Wen Qing.Most of the action in the last hour takes place in the Wen villa where the parlor is spacious enough to accommodate numerous intricate martial arts battles including the finale where Yuan goes up against the 5 Elements Array. This particular fight is quite spectacular and gives star Kuo Chui the opportunity to show off his considerable fighting and acrobatic skills. Two of his fellow Venoms (from THE FIVE VENOMS, 1978), Chiang Sheng and Lu Feng, are on hand among his many opponents. Honorary "Sixth" Venom Wang Li plays the Wen patriarch.The lead actress is the spunky young Candy Wen Hsueh Erh, whom I've also seen in SWORDSMAN AND ENCHANTRESS, THE BRAVE ARCHER AND HIS MATE, ODE TO GALLANTRY, and HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD. She's cute and petite, but can play spoiled, headstrong, and impetuous very well. She's not a martial artist and her fight scenes are staged to cover up this fact, but she's quite appealing nonetheless. Longtime Shaw Bros. leading lady Ching Li has a smaller role as Wen Yi, Qing's mother, but it's an important one in the film as she maintains her love and devotion to Golden Snake (Lung Tien-Hsiang), who is seen in flashbacks to their tender romance, a relationship distorted by her family into a "rape." But the real heart of this film is Kuo Chui as Yuan Cheng Chih, in one of the few films in which he plays the central heroic role (see also ODE TO GALLANTRY, 1982). He's a charismatic screen presence and superb martial artist and acrobat, but he also fleshes out the role of a man who seeks to use his powers for good and avoid bloodshed or killing. During one encounter, he's appalled when Wen Qing, still in male garb, kills an opponent unnecessarily. He always prefers to negotiate rather than fight. More than anything else, he's the reason to see this film. Wong Yue played the role in the earlier film, SWIFT SWORD, also reviewed on this site, and was quite good, but he doesn't dominate the film as Kuo Chui does here.