Red Heroine 1929
Caleb Kennedy
and apparently the earliest complete martial-arts film. The Devil Music
Ensemble is taking it round the country with live accompaniment - it's not
available on DVD (yet). The projection is from a DVD transfer -
unfortunately the side and bottom of the image are cut off, which results in
some lost words. The original print is, of course, quite battered, and
offers dual Chinese/English titles.
Artistically, the movie is junk - but it's quite an entertaining melodrama.
The sets are cheap (check out those 'stone walls') - the direction minimal -
the acting quite unsubtle (the bucktoothed bodyguard wins the award here) -
and the humor broad. There's not much fighting, and it's brief and basic -
nonetheless, there's much fascination in seeing one of the ancestors of the
martial-arts film - the ingredients remain basically unchanged.
I don't know when it's supposed to be set; to western eyes it looks like a
medieval fantasy. Armies are passing through a village; naturally, the
villagers are fleeing - but our timid heroine gets captured by a warlord
who's rounding up concubines. He already has a faithful harem of girls in
bikinis (revealing that the flat-chested look was favored). He chooses her
as his evening's entertainment and makes her strip, as the prelude to untold
barbarities. Fortunately, just then an elderly kung fu-fightin' hermit is
passing by and rescues her from the general's clutches. When she finds that
her grandmother has been killed by the invaders, she wants revenge; so the
hermit offers to train her in his skills.
Years pass, and the village is still occupied. One man is arrested for
treason, but the general makes a bargain with his family: he'll free the
father if his daughter offers herself to him. Full of filial piety, she
goes - only to find that the treacherous general will execute her father
anyway. But at the last moment, as he's being tied to the wall and the girl
is about to be ravished, the red heroine arrives to the rescue, flying
through the air, waving her sword, and magically appearing out of puffs of
smoke. She and the hermit make short work of the general and his henchmen -
the rescued family thanks her, and she flies off to other adventures.
The music accompaniment (mostly guitar/violin/drums) is pretty loud - no
staying quietly in the background for this band! With the drums & violin
piercing eardrums, it's a little hard to focus on the film....not
necessarily a complaint though, the musical themes are interesting.
A trailer for the film, and more info about the band, here:
www.devilmusic.org
A bit more info on the film here: http://www.kungfucinema.com/?p=2910
pvitari
screen in Atlanta, GA, at Emory University, 205 White Hall, 7:30 p.m.,
Sunday, October 5. Free and open to the public. White Hall 205 is
not the biggest screening room on campus so I advise you to come early
if you plan to attend. For more information, go to www.filmstudies.emory.edu.
-- Paula