BANDITS, PROSTITUTES, AND SILVER (1977)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

This 1970s chopsocky, issued under an assortment of English-language titles, is probably best known as one of the many films starring kung-fu diva Angela Mao. It's also one of the few films of the kung-fu craze to boast a female director, one Pao-Shu Kao. who also co-wrote BANDITS. The film is better organized than a lot of contemporaneous films in this genre, and sustains a strong sociological theme about the evil custom of selling women into prostitution. The fact that the story takes place in a typical quasi-medieval period doesn't rob it of relevance to modern times, unfortunately.

Though Mao is the most recognizable names to Westerners, she's not the star. Don Wong plays honest kung-fu artist Shang Li, a man who's fallen in love with Shao Choy, who has been contracted-- implicitly by her parents-- to serve in a brothel. Shang can buy out Shao's contract if he has enough silver, but he's just a poor wagon-driver. Sparrow, a scheming bandit, offers Shang a means of making big money if Shang helps Sparrow rip off a silver shipment via wagon. When Sparrow pulls off the heist but threatens to slay all witnesses, Shang fights and kills him. Despite opposing the bandit, Shang still needs the stolen silver and absconds with the loot, intending only to use as much as he needs to buy out Shao Choy's contract.

Another couple of bandits-- Mao's unnamed character, and her husband, a renegade Shaolin-- decided that they'd like the silver for their own reasons. In addition, a third conspirator, Pao, is also after the loot. The married bandits end up becoming allies to Shang, in that they're impressed with his romantic motivations, but this earns them the emnity of Pao. Pao manages to kill both husband and wife, though the evil genius is vanquished by Shang in a final combat with a singularly inventive method of death-dealing.

The only metaphenomenal elements of the film are the weapons used respectively by Pao and by Angela Mao's character. Pao uses a complicated ring-and-chain weapon slightly reminiscent of the "flying guillotine" gimmick, while the bandit queen, oddly enough, has miniature rotary buzzsaws attached to her shoes, capable of cutting anyone she kicks. There is of course no explanation as to how the saws can possibly be powered in this period film, so I have to attribute it to "the magic of chi" or something like that. No technology or magical method is explicitly evoked, so the metaphenomenality is only explicable as some obscure kung-fu trick, in line with the fellow who can cling to walls in THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS.