SILVER HERMIT FROM SHAOLIN (1980)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Well, if I ever wanted to say that I'd found THE kung-fu film that was most thoroughly out-of-control and incoherent, SILVER HERMIT FROM SHAOLIN, directed and adapted (from a Chinese novel) by lead actor Tien Peng, seems to win that honor.

Even a lot of the details of the film's title and character billing are erratic. Of course, a lot of HK chopsockies have many alternate titles. But while the HERMIT title is fairly accurate-- the main hero, in the dub I watched, is named "Silver Hermit"-- an alternate title, THE SILVER SPEAR, seems to combine the first part of the hero's name and the second part of the villain's name, that of "Shining Spear." As for character billing, going by a couple of different online reviews, there must be an alternate dubbed version out there, since it seems that that one cites a totally different English version of the hero's name, while changing the villain's to that of "Silver Spear." But there's still not a good reason to emphasize one of the bad guys, because he happens to be a stooge to the main evildoer.

The first 20 minutes of the film provides the overall setup and is the only comprehensible section before the movie devolves into chaos. A noblewoman named Green Jade, mistress of the Green Jade Villa in "Shaolin Valley," wants to find the greatest martial artist to marry her daughter and inherit the land. Four candidates venture to the valley and meet one another while waiting for a royal entourage to show up. Shining Spear (Tien Ho) offers water for all to drink, but only Silver Hermit (Peng) declines to drink. A strange woman comes bounding through the valley but then disappears, after which the three who drank succumb to poison in the water, though Shining Spear manges to live. When the courtiers arrive, they immediately assume that Silver Hermit poisoned everyone to dispose of his rivals. The accused man goes on the run.

Since Shining Spear survived the poison, Silver Hermit shows up at the former's house to ask for help. There Shining Spear reveals that he was totally responsible for the poison, having taken countermeasures to survive. He also frames the Hermit for the killing of Spear's wife. The royal courtiers show up and attack Hermit, who fights them off and flees. After he leaves, the mysterious bounding girl shows up, and it's revealed that she's the sister of Spear, and that both of them are servants of a master who has some sort of grudge against Green Jade. To serve his cause, the unnamed villain wants Spear to be the one to marry the young heiress.

But after that, everything goes to pot, and Peng's direction becomes aimless and frenetic. For once, it's clear that some of the incoherence stems from Peng trying to adapt sections of the novel, though his inability to be selective results in lots of incidents that go nowhere and characters who seem important but never appear again. For one quick example, a benefactor helps Hermit hide by pretending to be a merchant running a store. But he's also given a "wife," who's a woman without a memory, though she's pretty sure Hermit's not her husband. And then-- that plot vanishes into the ether.

A little interest is generated by the revelation of Spear's master: a vampiric being from Persia who goes by the name "Immortal." His grudge against the Villa is never revealed, though late in the film he has a brief fight with Green Jade, since Immortal says something like, "We meet again." I think that fight is the last time Immortal appears in the story but if he was defeated maybe the scene was omitted from my copy. 

Assorted scenes stitch the rest of the film together, but even the ones with a goofy feel just feel rather pathetic, like a scene where some guy chows down on nothing but raw eggs for some medical reason. Some kung-fu fights are filmed in darkness and hard to see, as if Director Peng was rushing through them. I assumed that "Doris Chen" (often billed as Lung Chung-erh) played the athletic sister of Spear, but HKMDB says she played "Petite Jade," which I suppose might be an alternative name for "Green Jade," since I can't remember any single actress being identified as the prospective bride. The only goofiness for which Peng's not responsible is certainly the creation of the dubbing people: when a Buddhist priest, who is apparently supposed to be speaking the sacred name "Amitabha," says something that sounds like "Amee-tofu."  

I just screened HERMIT yesterday and I've already forgotten the climax. This film makes the nutty FIREFIST OF INCREDIBLE DRAGON look positively linear by comparison.