THE SNAKE, THE TIGER, THE CRANE (1980)

 

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

Here's yet another cheap Taiwanese chopcocky bolstered by the insertion of  a few HK name-stars, and with just a touch of uncanny phenomena thrown into the mix. The movie's only noteworthy for a starring role for Nancy Yen, who played a supporting role in Angela Mao's SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WIND, WILD FIRE.

The flick's alternate title EMPEROR OF SHAOLIN KUNG FU may be closer to the Chinese-language title, though it's not really any more accurate than the one with all the animal-names. The film does start off with an unnamed emperor, though he must be a pretty punk emperor given that his fortress-city is taken over by a few dozen bandits led by one Li Tzu Chang (Wang Hsieh). The emperor's something of a punk too, since before the bandits even take the city, he thinks it's "honorable" to commit suicide, and to take all or most of his retinue with him. Only his daughter Chang Ping resists this plan, though her father tries to kill her, but only manages to slice off one of her arms. She escapes the takeover anyway, and from then on, Bandit Chang keeps on the lookout for the only member of the royal family who got away.

Ping shields herself for a time in a Buddhist monastery, which might be where the "Shaolin" part of the title comes in, since someone apparently teaches her martial arts and swordplay. Ping finally leaves the monastery and tries to rally a rebel force against the usurpers. However, though she's pretty good as a one-armed swordswoman, she sucks at finding good allies. Twice she makes alliances, and twice her efforts at rebellion fail. She is reasonably liberated for a feudal princess, for in order to get revenge, she's even willing to sleep with one of her commoner allies, though she doesn't end having to do so.

In the last third of the movie, Ping is so badly routed that she takes refuge in a small village, where she pretends to be a madwoman so that no one will suss out her identity. In this identity she meets Tu the Butcher (Carter Wong). Tu just happens to be desperately looking for a bride to satisfy the wishes of his dying mother, and he convinces himself to marry the comely crazy lady to that end. Not surprisingly, Ping likes Tu's filial devotion-- she didn't exactly have a great parent herself-- and also appreciates that he shares her antipathy for Bandit Chang. So the princess marries the commoner and implicitly enjoys a wedding-night so that she has some hope of bearing his child before he fights Chang.

The final battle in which Tu and Ping team up against Chang is just so-so, and things aren't even much livelier when Chang unleashes his one uncanny weapon, mini-grenades that look like black marbles. (Compared to some of the weird weapons I've seen in HK films, marble-bombs are pretty meager fare.) Slightly more interesting is the tragic turn of Ping's marriage, for Tu dies and she apparently does not conceive by him, since she spends the rest of her days as a wandering nun teaching martial arts. Nancy Yen gets the best dramatic scenes, though her fight-stunts aren't even as good as the ones in her Angela Mao movie.