CHIN SHA YEN (1977)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* 

"Bring me the head of Chin Sha Yen" (or something very like that) cries some gang-leader halfway through this dumbass Chinese blend of kung-fu and hardboiled-detective genres. I listened to this dopey movie twice and that's the only time I heard the proper name that forms the movie's title. I only know, thanks to the HKMDB, that the character is played by the actor Wang Kuan-Hsiung, who would get a much better acting opportunity in the following year's LADY CONSTABLES. But I don't think the English translation is totally at fault for CHIN's problems. This is the sort of bumptious movie where characters walk around proclaiming themselves to be "The Just Man" or "The Wanderer from the North," just to make it seem like something dramatic is going on.

 So in this case, a martial maiden named Hsiao (Polly Shang Kuan) gets to be the hardboiled dick of the story. After her uncle is slain by a gold-masked man, Hsiao ranges from town to town, looking for the criminal, who may or may not be identical with a legendary kung-fu master, The Golden Bird. Clearly "Golden Bird" would have made a better title, since that's the person Hsiao keeps seeking. Her inquiries cause the killer to send some hired thugs after her. A stranger who calls himself The Wanderer intervenes to protect Hsiao, slaying one hireling with, of all things, a scroll that elongates so as to somehow cut the hireling's throat. Despite this rescue, Hsiao immediately suspects that the Wanderer may actually be the Golden Bird, so she rejects his aid. Yet he keeps showing up to help her, and so do two other kung-fu dudes, the aforementioned Just Man and some guy whose name I didn't hear. They're all in an inn when some gang-leader calls for the head of Chin Sha Yen, and I swear I never heard the name repeated. Hsiao keeps blundering about, so eventually the Golden Bird himself shows up. But is it the original, or an impostor? I doubt even the audiences in 1977 really cared. The script keeps a fair quantity of marvels-- an umbrella that can be used as a shield against swords, combatants that can run up the sides of trees-- and that was probably all anyone expected. Shang Kuan is definitely the starring character here, despite the flatness of the character, and on top of that, the fights are pretty desultory. This is a little odd, since the director started as a stunt guy. I didn't recognize any of the movies on which he served as a director, except 1979's ONE FOOT CRANE, an equally bland offering, but with Lily Li in the martial maiden role.