DIRTY HO

Hong Kong, 1976, 103 minutes, Colour.
Yue Wong, Chia- Hui Lo.
Directed byChia- Liang Liu.

Released in 1976, this martial arts saga can be seen as an anticipation of the success of the Hong Kong and later Chinese industries in their presentation of martial arts fantasies, symbolised by Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film of 2000).

This was the period of the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong, the years after the films of Bruce Lee and his death, the collaborations between Hong Kong and Hollywood.

This film is pure Hong Kong, pure China. It can be seen as something of a colourful martial arts pantomime.

The narrative outline is fairly basic, a thief trying to charm the girls and give them jewels, his being counterbalanced by a merchant with more money, more jewels, the women moving from one to the other. The merchant is impressed by the skills of the thief, trains him, has him as his bodyguard when there are attempts on his life. Eventually they return to Peking for a happy culmination.

The film is very vivid in it costumes, sets and decor, everything in bright colours.

However, the main interest of the film, apart from the thin narrative and the engaging characterisations of the actors as Prince and thief, is the martial arts and the fights that capture the attention. And they recur regularly and frequently throughout the film.

There is a lot of delight in seeing the various combats, the movements, the skills, the athleticism, the special effects – though they are more naturalistic here than in the films to come.

No great demands on the mind. Rather, something of a visual feast for the senses and the excitement of the martial arts confrontations.