DEAF MUTE HEROINE (1971)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

DEAF MUTE HEROINE is a simple but fairly evocative swordplay-film glossed by the protagonist's physical impairment. In contrast to most if not all martial arts films about blind fighters, being deaf and mute doesn't convey the sense of the hero being uncanny.We never know why deaf-mute swordswoman Ya Ba (Helen Ma) takes up the dangerous profession of bounty hunter, but she's more than able to compensate for her disability by wearing reflective gauntlets on her wrists, allowing Ya to see behind her when necessary.

In truth we don't see Ya at the work of bounty hunting, though. Early in the film she steals a set of priceless pearls from a gang of robbers, possibly with the idea of getting out of the bounty life-- though because Ya's mute, she's never able to communicate anything about her past or her future plans. In the process of stealing the pearls, she kills the brother of sexy gang-leader Ching Ching (Shirley Huang), and for the rest of the film Ching Ching's forces assail the lone swordswoman. (To be sure, I don't think Ching Ching mentions the brother again.) 

At one point Ya gets a shot at normal life. She's wounded by one of Ching Ching's many poisoned throwing-daggers, but a humble cloth-dyer takes her in. As Ya recovers, the two of them fall in love, but, big surprise: domestic happiness is not in Ya's destiny.

Though Helen Ma is admirably stoic throughout the film, the main appeal is the well-staged fights, almost entirely involving swords. In the early half of the film, the swordplay seems mundane. However, in the latter half, both Ya and Ching Ching display uncanny wuxia skills, being able to hurl objects like blunt poles hard enough to penetrate human bodies. In one scene, Ya hurls a flat straw hat at Ching Ching like a discus, but the villainess catches it and throws it back so that its edge cuts into the wall of a nearby hut. The battle of the swordswomen is excellent, and it ends, oddly enough, with the villainess getting hanged by the neck, which is one mode of execution I've never seen in a chopsocky. However, there's a male bandit also chasing after Ya, and he provides the long climactic fight, and even forces her to fight without her sword for a bit. DEAF MUTE HEROINE is severly underwritten, but at least it doesn't bring in an overabundance of side-characters, like a huge number of Hong Kong films of the period.