"The Legend Of The Black Scorpion" is a "Hamlet" Adaptation That Bites Off More Than It Can Chew

First of all, it is a bit annoying how many Asian films get English titles that are widely different from the movie's actual name. In this case, "The Legend Of The Black Scorpion"'s real title is "The Banquet" ("Ye Yan" in Mandarin Chinese) and although it does take over an hour and a half to get to the actual event the title refers to, it's a little misleading. Scorpions do play a role as a motif but the interjection of "legend" erroneously suggests there's more to it than that. The word "legend" is thrown around too liberally with English titles for Asian films in general. I guess the distributors felt "The Banquet" was too plain of a name and wasn't flashy enough for American audiences. This insults both the American viewer, who if they're watching this is probably at least a casual fan of Chinese/Hong Kong cinema already, and the movie itself.

But to get back to the film, this movie is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set during the tumultuous end of the Tang Dynasty in the 10th Century. You have the king who murders his brother in Emperor Lin (played by Ge You), his dead brother's wife who he takes as his own in Empress Wan (played by Zhang Ziyi) and the conflicted son of the murdered king in Crown Prince Wu Luan (played by Daniel Wu). There's even the play to "catch the conscience of the king" at one point.

The movie opens up with a musical drama performance in a round theater made of bamboo nestled in a bamboo forest. It's a beautiful visual like you'd expect from a quality modern Wuxia film. All the players are wearing spotless white robes and expressionless white masks. The song is a haunting one and the marionette-like dance is a bit unsettling, but in a visually interesting way. White is a very symbolic color in many Asian cultures. It can mean death but it can also mean purity. In this case, it seems to mean a little bit of both. Distraught over his lover Wan marrying his father, Wu Luan has fled to this place to study song and dance, all but abandoning his royal life. So in this sense, the white could represent the death of his former self and the purity of his studies. This movie is heavy on symbolism in general. Even the characters talk about what certain colors, images, etc. mean. The death part shows up again when imperial guards clad in black armor storm the theater, on orders from the new Emperor Lin, to assassinate the Crown Prince. He hides while his fellow actors perish. This is one of the better action sequences visually thanks to the sloping tiers of the bamboo theater and the stark color contrasts.

What follows is unfortunately often a jumbled give and take that trips over it's own shoes. It's often unclear what the motivation of the characters is. Wu Luan returns to the imperial palace, portrayed with fantastic set pieces of gold, red and black, and in what is supposed to be a harmless sparring demonstration with wooden swords, the Crown Prince is once again nearly murdered on his uncle's orders. The problem here is that all these machinations are too direct and it's not believable that there wouldn't be immediate consequences, even if it involves a royal family where people look the other way. Empress Wan seems to go back and forth over favoring her new husband, her former husband, her former lover or her own selfish desires for power. It is established that she wears many metaphorical masks and costumes to suit her needs of the moment but instead of being an interesting, complex character, this just adds more confusion. You don't know who Empress Wan is. However, Zhang Ziyi makes the most of what she's given and provides the best acting the film has to offer. She plays jealous, lonely, angry, calculated, cruel, sad and seductive all well. Most of the other characters are played far too straight to be well-rounded though Ge You does do a pretty good job of playing a man who goes through the motions of being emperor but is truthfully unsure of his position.

Everything comes to a head at a banquet that the emperor has for all the courtiers. He once again thinks his nephew dead after making him "ambassador" to a neighboring kingdom with no intention of having him complete the journey there alive. But Wu Luan shows up in disguise as part of a similar song and dance routine to the opening scene. The empress plans to poison the emperor at the banquet with a concoction of arsenic and black scorpion venom mixed into wine. Her plans don't turn out like she hopes and the film climaxes in the misery well known to Shakespeare tragedies. The final scene of the film is quite unexpected though, a fatality where the source of the killing is highly ambiguous.

There is a lot less fighting action in this movie than in many other Wuxia films. Most of the scenes that do have this are very dance-like, which does nicely reflect Crown Prince Wu Luan's hobby. Modern Wuxia movies do a wonderful job of bringing out the beauty in martial arts but when too much emphasis is put on style, like in this movie, it loses believability as fighting in the context of the story. Also, if the majority of the movie flowed better and the interplay between actors was less awkward than the lack of extensive fighting scenes wouldn't be missed.

In some ways, "Hamlet" is simpler than the story told in "The Legend Of The Black Scorpion." There are some characters in this movie that clutter the plot up and make the movie a tad overlong. While this movie certainly has the colorful and highly detailed depiction of imperial China that's expected of these types of films , the rigid pacing and the too direct dialogue and symbolism give the movie much more of a Western feel. The liquidity, vastness and subtlety that characterises the best Chinese Wuxia films is all but missing.

"Come Drink With Me" Set The Bar High For Future Wuxia Films With Equally Great Action, Sets and Story

"Come Drink With Me" is a wuxia film from 1966 produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers studio. They practically invented the martial arts movie as we know it today and effectively started the Hong Kong film industry in the 1930s. Credit also goes to the talented directors and actors involved in their films. This particular movie is an early example of the beautifully detailed, beautifully choreographed action movie style that clearly influenced the martial arts epics of recent years by directors Ang Lee, John Woo and Zhang Yimou, among others. In Come Drink With Me, sets and story development are just as important as the fighting.

The film opens up on a conflict between a regional governor during Ming Dynasty China (which was a 300-year period beginning in the 1300s) and a bandit gang. They capture the governor's son because the governor has captured the gang's leader. Golden Swallow (played by Cheng Pei-Pei), the governor's daughter, is sent to settle the matter. She stops at the inn the bandits frequent and asks for liquor. Smiling Tiger Tsu Kan (Lee Wan-Chung), a smarmy man who reflects his namesake well, attempts to negotiate with Golden Swallow but the two do not come to an agreement about prisoner hand-over. That's when "the dance" starts. Each of the bandits, all having a particular weapon speciality of course, start to circle up on her, making "distracting" small talk. She doesn't appear armed but the bandits soon learn what she can do with two short swords she has hidden. Incidentally, Cheng Pei-Pei's nickname is "The Queen Of Swords." This battle ends in somewhat of a stalemate.

The inn scene is also where the main male protagonist enters. Drunken Cat Fan Tai-Pei (Yueh Hua), who appears to be a drunken beggar fool, bangs on the inn door, trying to get in as the fight is going on. As the movie progresses. his true nature begins to show itself. In barging into Golden Swallow's room and expertly stealing her weapons through slight of hand, he gets her out of the room before the bandits can capture her. Then he doles out secret messages in song with a chorus of kids.

Golden Swallow learns that the bandits make their headquarters at a Buddhist monastery. While praying there she encounters the bandit's leader Jade Faced Tiger Yin Chung-Yu (Chan Hung-Lit), a man who's pure white robes contrast with his cruelty (earlier in the movie he kills a young monk with a poison dart to the eye). His face is also covered in white make-up making him look like a cross between David Bowie and The Joker. There's an excellent creep factor with this guy. This encounter leads to another fight but with more bandits this time. Golden Swallow even loses her weapons at one point but a hidden Drunken Cat secretly throws them back to her. Jade Faced Tiger hits her with a poison dart and she barely manages to escape the monastery.

More revelations about Drunken Cat surface when he finds Golden Swallow and nurses her back to health. He has a connection to the corrupt abbot of the monastery and needs to defeat him in the name of justice and honor, which is the reason why he has been helping Golden Swallow. They agree to work together to accomplish each other's goals. Drunken Cat's arc exemplifies the story within a story element common in Asian cinema.

The next big battle happens when the prisoner exchange doesn't go as planned. Golden Swallow and a band of other female fighters take on the bandits, including Jade Faced Tiger and Smiling Tiger, while Drunken Cat settles his score with Abbot Liao Kung (Yueng Chi-Hing) and shows off his impressive kung fu skills. This is also the point where the movie gets a bit cheesy. Drunken Cat and Lioa Kung have chi powers which manifest themselves as what appears to be icy wind from their fingertips. Since the Force in "Star Wars" is modeled after things like this it's impossible not to think of it as such. The 1966-level special effects don't look that great. You can see the chi powers coming from nozzles in their sleeves. This really isn't necessary to the plot or even the action because the two adversaries easily distinguish themselves through hand-to-hand fighting. It kind of takes you out of the movie a bit because there's no indication of an fantasy-like elements in the rest of the film.

Like any good action movie, the good guys defeat the bad guys. The contrast between the more one-on-one fight of Drunken Cat and the Abbot and the pitched battle between multiple forces with Golden Swallow and her warriors versus the bandits provides a nice well-rounded conclusion.

One calling card of wuxia films as opposed to some other martial arts movies is the attention to detail in the world outside the fighting. This is probably due to wuxia's origin as literature. This movie is not the expansive epic of say "Red Cliff" or the emotion-filled "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but you do get to know most of the characters as people and not just as fighters. "Come Drink With Me" is clearly an influence on and important precursor to the modern wuxia movie like the aforementioned films. Director King Hu had a background in set design and it shows in this movie. The buildings, inside and out, are both intricate and look used. Their fully-realized nature enhances the viewing experience and transports you into the Ming Dynasty. Nothing feels too much like a set. Also, the costumes each character wears are distinctive and reflect their personalities. Possibly the most important triumph of this movie is that there's a strong female protagonist in Golden Swallow. This was not something seen much in 1960s films of any genre.

Despite the hiccups, the half-baked chi powers and an altogether poor subtitle translation that lends an air of confusion to certain scenes (which really isn't the movie's fault itself though),"Come Drink With Me" is a great movie. The vastness of it's scope for the time period it was made in, plus the fully-formed plot and the great kung fu and sword-fighting action, make for a film where all the pieces fit.

"Iron Monkey" Is A Seamless Blend Of Kung Fu Action, Political Intrigue And Humor

"Iron Monkey," from 1993, like several Asian films, is not actually about the perceived main character. This movie serves as an origin story of Wong Fei-hung, a real 19th century martial arts master, acupuncturist and revolutionary. Since his death in 1924 he has become a folk hero and has begun to slip into semi-mythical status as some of the hundreds of film depictions of his life are less than historically accurate. In "Iron Monkey" Wong Fei-hung is a kid, traveling around with his stern martial artist father Wong Kei-ying. The events of this movie influence Fei-hung to become a champion of the people.

The Wongs (The father played by Donnie Yen and the boy played by Angie Tsang - yes, a little girl played a little boy) arrive in a town with an inequity problem. There are many in poverty while the regional governor Cheng (James Wong) hoards all the gold and the best food for himself. But somebody is doing something about it, a Robin Hood-like character in the form of the masked and black-clad Iron Monkey. Yang Tianchun (Yu Rongguang) is the Iron Monkey. He is a respected doctor who often gives free medical service to the poor and charges the rich to pay for it. This is a guy Occupy Wall Street would love. At night he uses his stealthy kung fu skills to take gold from the rich to give to the poor. When he robs the governor the greedy man orders bumbling Chief Fox (Yuen Shun-Yi), his head of security, to apprehend the Iron Monkey. Anybody who is good at martial arts and/or has any association with monkeys is considered a suspect. This leads to some funny arrests like a man who supposedly "sneezes like a monkey."

Wong Kei-ying and Wong Fei-hung are arrested. Kei-ying agrees to help capture the Iron Monkey if the governor will let his son go. The governor says he will only after the Iron Monkey is defeated. Kei-ying finds that most of the locals hate him for cooperating with the despised governor and won't sell him any food. In comes Doctor Yang to the rescue and the plot device of him helping the man who's trying to bring him in and shut him down.

Eventually Wong Kei-ying learns the truth about Yang and why he spends his nights as the Iron Monkey and the two agree to join forces to take down the governor. But a new threat arises in the corrupt Shaolin monk Hin-hung (Yen Shi-kwan), who matches Governor Cheng's spineless greed with an evil disregard for life. Hin-hung is an imperial official who takes over the Governorship and vows to take down the Iron Monkey himself. Hin-hung and his band of frankly ugly, sneering monks and one sword-wielding disfigured nun provide much more of the challenge than the previous governor's men. Chief Fox turns out to not be such a bad guy after all, certainly not the Sheriff of Nottingham-type of character he was in the beginning and secretly and not-so-secretly helps the Iron Monkey. From this point, the fighting action from everybody, including young Fei-hung, builds up to a final confrontation for Wong Kei-ying and Doctor Yang against the evil monk.

The fight scenes are excellent in this movie. But you can expect that from director Yuen Woo-ping, well known in both Asia and the U.S. for his action choreography. The fights are interesting to watch and expertly use the environment of the sets and props, like wooden beams, filled burlap sacks, tile roofs, tables, chairs, fire, clothing etc., as weapons and staging areas. Each fighter also clearly has their own style which also reflects their individual personalities well. This drives home the fact that martial arts is just as much mental as physical.

The humor is weaved seamlessly into the action and the politically-charged plot. Nothing feels too forced. Governor Cheng is a great weaselly, sniveling character, forever complaining about and chasing after his multiple wives. There's a great scene where Yang and his assistant Miss Orchid (Jean Wang) dress up as imperial officials to steal from the Governor. Both are wearing fake-looking beards and talking in funny accents. In one scene, Yang tells a rich patient that he is over-sexed and needs to lay off the shark-fin soup.

The one flaw in "Iron Monkey" is that Miss Orchid could have been developed better. She has some good fight scenes but is still fairly one-dimensional. It seem like her addiction was mostly to provide additional evidence that Doctor Yang is a kind and ethical man, as there is a flashback scene, filmed in an oddly thick blue hue, of him rescuing Orchid from either being raped or killed.

"Iron Monkey" is a great introduction to a Chinese folk hero portrayed as an adult by such stars as Jackie Chan and Jet Li. This is also a very well-rounded movie that appeals to all types of audiences with it's pleasing mix of fluid kung fu action, political intrigue and comedy. This type of film is a good gateway drug and jumping off point to both the longer, denser and more complex epic, historical period wuxia movies and to the leaner-plotted, fighting-focused kung fu films.