The Story of Heroine Fan Lei-fa (1968)
Centring on the legend of the four ancient Chinese heroines, the film was a novelty for audiences at the time, as the singing performance was in Cantonese and used huangmei operatic rhythms—a popular trend in the 1960s, yet it retained traditional flavours by using operatic luogu percussion in the battle scenes. ‘Movie-fan princess' Connie Chan Po-chu not only sings Cantonese song and huangmei tone solos in the film, she also wows the audience by taking up the doumadanrole for the first time as the Tang dynasty female general Fan Lei-fa, showing off her superb operatic martial skills, together with Shum Chi-wah, inherited from Peking opera master Fen Ju Hua. Yu Kai's weaponry prowess and renowned female comedian Tam Lan-hing cross-dressing as a male general are also brilliant in this gem.
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Surprisingly incoherent and boring
Pretty Good
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.