More Than Kung Fu

Shaw Brothers loved efficiency. Although their films took an age to make compared to the Cantonese films that were frequently made in a week, the Shaw Brothers strived to make their filmmaking process as svelte as possible—hence the endlessly reused Movie Town lots, the contract actors, writers and directors and the recombination of popular plot elements.

Director Hsu Teng-hung was proud of his efficient filmmaking technique, claiming that he shot over 60 setups in one day on the set of Thundering Sword.¹ It’s easy to see how he worked so quickly. He kept editing to a minimum, tracking the camera through a scene, using zooms to provide the emphasis usually given by more familiar but less efficient close-ups and reverse shots.

For all of the cleanness behind the camera, obviously no one suggested that the scriptwriter, Sheng Chiang, apply the same rigor to his work. Thundering Sword delivers a plot so thoroughly incomprehensible, so poorly thought out, convoluted and belabored as to be an exitless hedge maze built by drunken gnomes. Characters wander in and out without introduction or explanation. The caterpillar clan, who adorn their house with bug idols, worship a snake. The titular sword is forgotten for at least half of the film. Setting one foot inside Thundering Sword’s funhouse guarantees at least 90 minutes of forehead exercise as your brow knits tighter and tighter.

The full plot description takes up twice as much space as most reviews, so I’ll provide an executive level summary: Yu (Chang Yi ) and Chiang (Lo Lieh) are searching for the Thundering Sword, which, prophesy says, is strong enough to destroy the world. Chiang finds it, but Jiau (Chang Pei Pei), leader of the Caterpillar clan, steals it and poisons Chiang. Jiau tries to get Chiang home for treatment, but poor Chiang is waylaid and crippled by bandits. Jiau, meanwhile, kills 3 dozen people and falls in love with Yu, who unwittingly takes the wrap for her crimes. 60 minutes of plot twists later, all is explained (not really) and the clans settle the matter of the Thundering Sword.

Credit is usually given to King Hu’s Come Drink With Me and Chang Cheh’s Tiger Boy for reviving the wuxia pian genre and transplanting it to Shaw’s Mandarin studio of the 1960s. But Hsu Teng-hung’s wuxia film, Temple Of The Red Lotus, was made and released before Hu and Cheng’s films. Why do Hu and Cheng continue to receive all the laurels? Well, unlike Hu and Cheng, who went on to make a number of great films, including many wuxia classics, Hsu Teng-hung went on to make films like Thundering Sword.

To be fair, wuxia stories are almost always complex and stuffed with a certain amount of nonsense; both of Tsui Hark’s versions of Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, which share much with The Thundering Sword, are plotted with only the laziest of eyes towards comprehensibility.

But wuxia films, the good ones at least, tend to overcome their baroque plots with gorgeous visuals or an emphasis on the tales’ mythical aspects, making the numerous plot twists part of a fun and beautiful package. But Thundering Sword matches its absurd plot with a visual style chosen for efficiency rather than effect and quickly wears out its welcome.

1 Emily Lo “Profile of Hsu Teng-hung.” The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study.

The Thundering Sword
Released: May 9, 1967
Dir: Hsu Teng-hung