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Slave
of the Sword |
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Year: |
1993 |
Max Mok |
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Director: |
Chiu
Yen-Ping |
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Producer: |
Hui
Pooi-Yung |
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Cast: |
Pauline
Chan Bo-Lin,
Max Mok Siu-Chung, Joyce
Ngai Suk-Kwan, Jackson Lau
Hok-Yin |
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The
Skinny: |
One
would think fusing Hong Kong's fantasy swordplay genre with
Category-III erotica would be a match made in heaven, but
Slave of the Sword disproves that naïve theory.
Not even repeated scenes of Pauline Chan making out with Joyce
Ngai can salvage this movie. |
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Review by
Calvin
McMillin: |
As
a movie reviewer and a lover of cinema, I've seen my fair
share of critically acclaimed motion pictures. I've also bared
the brunt of numerous, shoddy Wong Jing flicks. But I'm no
snooty film geek; I really do like all kinds of movies. And
of all the genres Hong Kong cinema has to offer, wuxia is
one type of Chinese film that I am particularly fond of watching.
On a seemingly unrelated note, like any other red-blooded,
heterosexual male, I do enjoy seeing naked women. So imagine
my complete delight in stumbling upon Slave of the Sword,
a film that purports to cross-pollinate those two heretofore-separate
genres into one magnificent thrill ride of sex, sin, and swordsmanship.
Well, not exactly.
Slave of the Sword details
the erotic misadventures of Cheung Wu-Nien (Pauline Chan),
a down-on-her-luck dancer who finds herself starving and alone
when her father is murdered by assassins. Wu-Nien has a couple
of chance encounters with Yun (Jackson Lau), a cold-blooded
killer who takes a shine to the buxom young lass, and gives
her some steamed buns out of pity before soldiering off on
his merry way. But Yun is abducted and sold to a brothel,
where she meets Madame Hun (Joyce Ngai), a bisexual bitch
looking to make some money off the innocent, virginal Wu-Nien.
After some sexual training and a little torture, Wu-Nien escapes
from her captors and flees to swordsman Yun's forest shack
to seek shelter. At the cabin, she learns the shocking truth
about her so-called knight-in-shining armor, Yun—he's
having a fling with Hun! Oh, and Yun and Hun are brother and
sister! Cue dry heaves. And if that level of perversion isn't
enough, there's a creepy eunuch played by a slumming Max Mok,
who shows up to randomly strangle people and laugh maniacally
in the twisted, not so family-friendly climax.
To sum up: points are revealed,
lesbians French-kiss one another, and ample doses of surprisingly
tame (yet increasingly incestuous) softcore sex goes down
in this sorry excuse for a movie. Don't ask me why the director
decided to intercut several sex scenes with unnecessary footage
(a dog barking, redundant flashbacks). If anything, he probably
wanted to disguise the fact that not only the sex scenes,
but the movie itself, was utter crap. Neither a martial arts
extravaganza nor a delightfully (a)rousing cheap thrill, Slave
of the Sword attempts to combine the best of both worlds.
Sadly, the viewer gets none of the above. (Calvin McMillin 2003) |
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Notes: |
•
Don't be fooled by Tai Seng's snazzy DVD box art; the actual
film looks like bad VHS, and has burned-in subtitles to boot,
with numerous grammatical transgressions against the English
language.
• Reportedly, much
of the costumes and sets were reused from the non-pornographic
Butterfly and Sword, a film that director Chiu Yen-Ping
produced.
• For more insanity,
stay for the end credits, which strangely fixate on the insanely
happy Max Mok for several minutes, only to begin showing random
scenes from the movie long after the credits have run their
course. Weird. |
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Availability: |
DVD
(Hong Kong)
Region 0 NTSC
Tai Seng Video Marketing
Widescreen
Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks
Embedded English and Chinese Subtitles |
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image
courtesy of Tai-Seng Video Marketing
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| LoveHKFilm.com
Copyright ©2002-2017 Ross Chen
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