THE FATE OF LEE KHAN and
THE VALIANT ONES
at Adelaide Cinematheque 2002
Monday even (that’s classical short for evening, not slack typing. I’m trying to set the tone here) at the Mercury in Adelaide, and the fine folks there turned on a King Hu double, courtesy of the
Cinematheque programme doing the rounds. The first feature, The Valiant
Ones, was on loan from the Taiwan Film Archive, while the second,
The Fate of Lee Khan, belonged to the archive in Hong Kong. Both were fine quality prints, digitally remastered in at least one case, and both showed why King Hu is regarded as the master of modern wire-fu: fight scenes were generally active and interesting, and the choreography by Sammo Hung maintained a natural rhythym, although there was a tendency towards too much fluttery flight at times.
The first film basically consisted of lots of roving about the countryside and alternately fighting and waiting, while the second was conducted in the close confines of an inn, and both succeeded in conveying the intended atmosphere. Both films had basically the same cast, which made sense: if you’ve got a winning formula, why mess with it. And several famous directors are known for having favourite actors to work with. An interesting game during the first, in particular, was spotting the very very young versions of the likes of Yuen Wah, Yuen Biao, and several other famous faces whose names temporarily escape me.
I’d like to pause here, if I may, gentle reader, to say a few words about the lead actor in both, whose name I have seen romanised variously as Pei Ying, Pai Yin, and Bai Ying. Man, oh man, is he just a pot full of sex with sugar on top. Honestly, I suspect that when some fortunate casting agent first cast an eye over this one, he thought to himself , “Here’s one to keep the women in their seats.” Cool, handsome, and confident, with that sort of devilish air that makes one (this one at least, gentle reader) go weak at the knees and promise to be very, very obedient. In short, he had an absolutely rivetting screen presence (well, as I may have mentioned, *I* was
rivetted).
Curiously enough, you may have seen him in a very recent film: he acted the part of Ying (the old boxing afficionado) in
Born Wild. Perhaps you were too distracted by the sight of a sweaty Louis Koo to notice, but he managed to be fairly repellent in that role, without indulging in histrionics, and apparently he has also featured as a villain in several other of King Hu’s films. Clearly, I would imagine, the sort of villain who has to beat the women off with a stick. And they’d enjoy it.
And on a more critical note, it is also curious that he shared with Li Li Hua, the lead actress of the second film, the ability to act with the eyes (I believe that Li performed the role of the mother in You Shoot, I Shoot, although I can’t confirm this). One expects it of Li, who is apparently renowned for that talent, and demonstrated such skill that she could well have performed her role from inside an English letterbox without markedly harming her portrayal. However one does not expect it of a man, much less of such a dishy man as Pei. But there they were: eyes darting furtively, sliding coyly, or rolling backwards in their heads (okay, I made that one up), the two of them carried the show. I suspect for this reason that this film could have been done creditably as a silent, or largely silent, film: think
The Mission for a current example of wordless acting.
I must confess that when I read Jonathan’s
review, I was taken aback. After all, that’s the sort of audience behaviour that we’ve all experienced if we’ve seen a Hong Kong film in a mainstream cinema, especially as part of an arty programme. But while the Mercury hosted a fair few turtlenecks, and contained a number of people who could reasonably be suspected of having latte’d in the recent past, none felt moved to express their self-perceived superiority after the films. At least, none within earshot of me. Perhaps I was wearing my “Snipe at this film at your peril” expression. Handy if you can do it.
Righto then, I’m off to cast an eye over Touch of Zen. Just to check if that Pei Ying’s who I think he is...
Review by Alison Jobling
FURTHER READING :
Stephen Teo in Senses
of Cinema
Soon J. Park's Kung
Hu tribute page
|
