Beautiful Swordswoman (1969)

[Drunk Monk]

This is a Taiwanese Kung Fu flick based on a Shaio Yi story - the father of the founder of Immortal Studios, the comic book company that I work for. It’s actually the first Shaio Yi story I’ve seen - his books aren’t translated.

It’s full of classic cliches, bwahahaing villains, victims dying just as the utter the name of their killer, avenge avenge avenge! 

It’s female strong. Two female assassins make a bunch of brutal hits killing dozens of guards. It’s a hot daughter of a rich swordsman and her governess, who are undercover. Then there’s a flashback revealing the savage backstory. Then lots of people get stabbed.

It’s got some brutal stuff for 69. Sanguineous for those times, rape (nothing exposed) and an absolutely ruthless baby killing. Kinda shocking.

The fight choreo is mediocre. The cinematography struggles to copy some of the great HK stuff but doesn’t quite succeed. Must be kept in context of the times though. The version I saw was horribly overexposed and washed out. 

But still, it was interesting. The story had its moments and I could see it being remade into some tasty ultravi. It’s just very dated now.

Not D00M recommended.

Watched on YouTube. On the immortal channel.

[Drunk Monk]

A random scene is stuck in my brain like an ear worm. Is that an eye worm? ew.

The beautiful swordswoman is at a teahouse with her governess staking out the next kill. There's a raucous table with a head villain with a scar, some of his goons, and some whores. A lovely gal comes in with her blind dad and asks if she can sing for them. They deliver a lovely traditional song. Then the gang starts molesting the singer. Then they push down the blind dad, who cracks his head and DIES. Then they start molesting the singer again. It's too much for the beautiful swordswoman so she and her governess kill them all. My fav kill is that she throws a tea cup to lodge it in one of the goons foreheads. 

1969. Wonder how this film was received back then...

[Drunk Monk]

Immortal staged a steam of this show hosted by my sdcc roommate (for one night) and now adopted nephew wuxiaman. I tuned in because it timed out with dinner, really only to make comments. Sarah from immortal was handling the tech side and she was new to the film. Wuxiaman - actually Brian - and I commented like MST2K bots. It was fun. This show has a lot to work with, particularly the tea cup through skull bit and the baby death. 

We might do another one. There were only like a half dozen viewers. It’s a community good will act by immortal.

[cranefly]

I almost checked this out on Immortal's stream, but too much was going on, and I didn't keep track of when it was.