1965 ‘江湖奇俠’ Directed by Hsu Tseng-Hung
Jimmy Wang Yu plays a young kid who heads off to Dragon Valley to meet the childhood friend who was promised as his bride. When he gets there, he finds that the family of the bride might not be an entirely honest bunch of people though. What is the story behind their feud with the monks at the Temple Of The Red Lotus, for a start?
Jimmy Wang Yu Chin Ping Ivy Ling Po Lo Lieh Tien Feng Li Min Lam Jing Ng Wai Chao Ming Lau Leung-Wa Fung Bo-bo Kao Pao-shu Fung Ngai Wong Ching-Ho Lee Wan-Chung Chow Lung-Cheung Chen Hung-Lieh Wu Ma Hao Li-Jen Chin Tsi-Ang Ko Lo-Chuen Pan Ai-Lun Helen Ma Wang Ruo-Ping Lau Kar-leung Chow Siu-Loi Chui Chung-Hok Yuen Woo-ping Tong Kai Show All…
Wang Yu - Der Tempel des Red Lotus, Wang Yu - Der Tempel des roten Lotus, Huo shao hong lian si zhi jiang hu qi xia, 火燒紅蓮寺之江湖奇俠
This was the first ever Wuxia in colour and the start of an amazing run by Shaw Brothers Studio in making the genre world renown.
It's a bit of an awkward beginning as the emphasis is more on the drama aspect than the actual fighting sequences. There's action but most of it is done through the use of darts which was disappointing and the sword fighting choreography its still in its infancy. There's no real conclusion as it was the first film out of the trilogy with the followup being The Twin Swords (1965) and The Sword and the Lute (1967).
The one aspect that I enjoyed from the film is the abundance of strong female characters, which has been…
AKA TOO MANY DARTS.
Apparently the first color Shaw wuxia and the first part of a trilogy (which might explain the abrupt ending and many loose ends). Light on action but that's made up for with some musical moments and a lengthy, weirdly funny middle act where the two leads have to talk their way out of the family compound one nosy relative at a time.
As the Shaw Brothers' first wuxia film it's surprising how fully formed TEMPLE OF THE RED LOTUS is. I haven't seen enough of its antecedents to know how much it innovates but it was apparently the first to be filmed in colour, so on that alone it must have been a minor revolution - it sure is mighty colourful.
As the first film in the Lady In Red Trilogy it's curious that the Lady In Red only appears briefly, and even the Temple Of The Red Lotus don't get much screen time in a film named after them. Got to call things something though, I guess.
There is an episodic quality to the script that suggests it picked a handful…
Shaw Brothers at the dawn of wu xia. Low on action and static, heavy on muddled period drama. Misses the more creative grandeur the studio would achieve easy in a couple of years. It is fun to see many future familiar faces without quite the comanding presence they'd achieve on later better films. For the HK historians out there.
The beginning of the Shaw Brother's wuxia genre as we know it. Jimmy Wang and Lo Lieh made their debut here, and would go on to be industry names. The story itself plays out almost like an opera, and was clearly influenced by it. You have a sequence where Jimmy and his lover attempt to escape the household and have to spar with each elder of the family. This would be replicated in 1978 in Lau Kar-leung's Shaolin Mantis, albeit with much better choreography. It's worth noting that both Lau Kar-leung and Yuen Woo-ping were in this as extras.
The Shaw Brothers dove headfirst into wuxia in 1965 with this, the first in a trilogy previously adapted in an epic serial (one of the longest movies ever) in 1928. Future luminaries abound, from Jimmy Wang Yu and Lo Lieh making their debuts, to reliable supporting actors like Tien Feng and The Love Eterne star Ivy Ling Po, to future director-choreographers Lau Kar-leung, Yuen Woo-ping and Tong Gaai as stuntman extras. Wang's a young man who gets caught up in a gang war he doesn't understand while he seeks some revenge for his murdered parents and falls for a pretty girl. Long sections of taking and walking feel like they belong more to the huangmei world than wuxia There's a…
Temple of the Red Lotus gets a bad rap, but the opening 45 minutes of this are great. A wonderful cast of actors (including a typically louche Lo Lieh and an atypically callow Jimmy Wang Yu), wuxia intrigue, romance and some fun swashbuckling action.
The back half however really sags, and it quickly becomes clear that there isn't going to be any resolution in this movie. There is s fun fight scene to cap things off, and enough intriguing threads are woven here though that the two sequels become a pretty enticing proposition.
Early Wuxia film from Shaw Brothers and first film to star Jimmy Wang Yu. It hasn’t aged well at all but still barely has charm to hold your attention. What’s the most interesting thing about the movie is it doesn’t have a lot of the Wuxia tropes that become staples since this is pre Come Drink With Me. Overall it’s an important piece of cinema history that doesn’t hold up
I decided to devote the rest of the year to gradually working my way through Shaw Brothers' martial arts productions. The first film on that unbelievably long list was Temple of the Red Lotus which got things off to a bit of a rocky start.
The film, directed by Hsu Tseng-Hung and starring a young Jimmy Wang Yu, tells a meandering tale of conflict between two warrior clans and the effects of that struggle on the lives of a young married couple. The plot, although decent, takes far too long to materialize and, to make matters worse, the action throughout is stale, lacking both style and a sense of excitement. There's very little Shaw Brothers magic to be found here…
Wuxia prasejarah, film wuxia berwarna pertama, siapa pun yg mau serius mengarungi rimba persilatan (Wuxia Cinema) secara urut ya harus dari sini dulu.
Wu berkunjung ke kediaman tunangannya, Lian Zhu, untuk dinikahinya. Di tengah perjalanan pas2an dengan keluarga tunangannya yg lagi bentrok dengan orang2 dari Kuil Teratai Merah, ia ikut terlibat melawan keluarga dari calon istrinya itu karena nganggep mereka adalah bandit.
This film definitely feels like it's trying to condense an epic saga into a 110 minute film, which is its biggest flaw. And the fact that it's the first movie in a trilogy shows that there's a lot of ground to cover.
As it is, however, I really dug it's over-dramatic flourishes and eye-catching costume design. It's made me want to continue to watch the series at least.
So there's this bandit clan feuding with a bunch of jumping monks. Right in the middle of all the fighting and running around rooftops and whatnot a Romeo & Juliet situation develops between some random guy and one of the bandit clan daughters. In order to leave they have to fight their way past all her female relatives, much like Christmas at my parents house but with even more swordplay.
