PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*
One IMDB review of this low-budget
Taiwanese chopsocky asserted that it was a response to an earlier
film, DRAGON GATE INN, which I have not seen. This seems very likely,
since CHIVALROUS is filled with scenes in which actors bounce off one
another with even less setup than one sees in the most average
kung-fu flick. On top of that, the titular inn—a site where Ming
loyalists converge to plot against the tyrannical Manchu
dynasty—barely figures into the story after the first thirty
minutes, after which the heroes and villains are just running around
through caves and forests most of the time.
There’s a vague murder-mystery plot
about loyalists being killed off by a Manchu general (Chang I) who’s
a master of “the bloody stroke,” a kung-fu move he uses to kill
people instantly with his outthrust fingers). Aside from the fact
that the villain is made up to look like one of many hundreds of
“white eyebrow” evildoers, the only other halfway interesting
element is that female lead Lung Chung-erh—teamed up this time with
male lead Carter Wong—belongs to an all-female tribe living in a
hard-to-reach domain called “Cloud Valley.” Lung’s character
introduces herself to the hero by killing off a bunch of his enemies
with flowers that exude poison. Apparently all the women in her tribe
are masters of floral poisons, although they’re not exactly
possesses of good memories. When Wong asks Lung how her people came
to live in the valley, she can’t seem to recall. Good thing he
didn’t ask her how their male-less tribe renewed its ranks.
Carter Wong is just average in the
fight department here, but there are some nice scenes by Lung
Chung-erh and by Chia Ling, playing a side-character.
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