Angela Mao: Hapkido and Woman Whirlwind (1972)
Director: Huang Feng
Forged: Angela Mao, Sammo Hung & Carter Wong / Angela Mao & Chang Yi
Language: Mandarin (with a wide range of English dubs and subtitle choices)
Runtime: 186 minutes (mixed)
Format: Blu-ray (2 Discs)
Launch Date: 3 October 2022
Jamie Havlin watches an action-packed double invoice that includes the Queen of Kung Fu, Angela Mao.
By 1972, the kung fu craze was nearing its peak. 5 Fingers of Dying and The Boxer From Shantung did a roaring commerce on the box-office, whereas Fist of Fury and Method of the Dragon established Bruce Lee as a worldwide celebrity. TV quickly acquired in on the act with Kung Fu, an action-adventure martial arts Western drama starring David Carradine. This went on to grow to be probably the most watched sequence on US tv, with an everyday viewers of 28 million viewers.
Inevitably, some studios have been eager to advertise a girl as Bruce Lee’s feminine equal. Chia Ling discovered herself renamed Judy Lee for Queen Boxer, its advertising and marketing even overtly claiming she was Bruce’s sister. One other Taiwanese actress Angela Mao fared higher. She was Bruce Lee’s sister, no less than onscreen in 1973’s Enter The Dragon, and she or he was chosen personally for that function by the legend himself.
In Hapkido, she performs Yu Ying, considered one of a trio of Chinese language guests – together with Fan Wei (Sammo Hung) and Kao Chang (Carter Wong) to Seoul, then occupied by the Japanese navy like the remainder of Korea.
From the off right here, it must be admitted, the Japanese are portrayed as xenophobic bullies, and the one-sided portrayal begins with an obnoxious Japanese man veering on caricature approaching to Yu Ying and insisting that earlier than lengthy, his nation can be ruling China too. Hotheaded Fan Wei quickly launches right into a struggle with him that his comrades additionally grow to be concerned in.
Attributable to their actions, the trio should go away Korea, however earlier than they achieve this, and after 5 years of research, they’re promoted to the seventh Diploma Black Belt of Hapkido.
Again in Cangzhou, they open their very own Eagle College of Hapkido. They’re suggested to remain away from the Black Bear College, a Japanese run academy who’re feared by locals and even the authorities. They’re led by Sensei Toyota, who’s extra gangster than teacher. He has a cackling villain’s snigger and a Hitler type moustache and he dismisses Hapkido compared to his faculty’s personal Japanese preventing types. ‘Crapkido’ considered one of his sycophants manufacturers it. Toyota decides to crush his new rivals.
In lots of respects, the film resembles Fist of Fury, an prompt success on its launch six months beforehand, and each films have been made by the identical Hong Kong studio, Golden Harvest.
Toyota’s males are able to horrible cruelty. Within the aftermath of a struggle in opposition to some native merchants, one pours an enormous pot of boiling water over some stay chickens, then some fish, earlier than scalding an outdated Chinese language lady with what’s left as she begs on her knees for forgiveness.
No shock then, that so lots of them later get crushed up by the Hapkido exponents. Sammo Hung choreographed the struggle scenes and regardless that he was nonetheless very younger, he clearly had the imaginative and prescient to drag these off with aplomb.
Angela Mao isn’t actually akin to Bruce Lee (he was a one-off) however she did prepare from a younger age at a Peking Opera faculty, and actually may carry out, with a excessive and quick kicking type that significantly impresses. Although petite and fairly, she’s able to a terrifically imply sneer when riled and she or he additionally possesses probably the most deadly pigtails in East Asian cinema.
It’s fascinating to see Sammo’s nice pal Jackie Chan crop up every now and then, working as an uncredited stuntman. He’s possibly most distinguished within the scene the place Yu Ying is informed that her faculty won’t be allowed to show Hapkido, ‘As a result of Hapkido is from Korea, a colony of the nice Japanese Empire.’ Jackie’s ass finally ends up on the fitness center flooring.
Generally referred to as Woman Kung Fu within the West, Hapkido proved an enormous hit and is even mentioned to have briefly outperformed Enter the Dragon on the North American field workplace.
Woman Whirlwind was one other staff up between Angela Mao and director Huang Feng, with Sammo Held on struggle choreography and appearing duties.
The motion will get underway with a gaggle of males chasing after Ling Shih-hao (Chang Yi). He had hoped to depart their gang and refuses to smuggle medicine for his or her tremendous dangerous man boss, Tung Ku. After a brutal beating he’s left for useless, although he’s discovered by a younger lady named Shuang-shuang, who nurses him again to good well being.
It emerges that Angela Mao’s character Tien Li-chun, has been on the path of Ling, as she blames him for the dying of her sister, as after he left her, she dedicated suicide.
She needs revenge. Ling needs revenge on Tung Ku and his henchmen and Tung Ku seeks revenge too, when Tien Li-chun smashes up a on line casino that he’s concerned in. Accused of dishonest at cube, she beats up a gaggle of his thugs, unleashing a devastating sequence of kicks as she does so. Sure, that is positively a revenge drama and a revenge drama with a twist, as when Tien Li-chun lastly tracks down Ling, she agrees to let him achieve his vengeance first earlier than she kills him.
This provides the movie an odd however fascinating dynamic and in amongst all of the revenge looking for, the theme of redemption can also be examined. Regardless of his previous misdeeds, Ling is probably a extra sympathetic character than Tien Li-chun, who may be chilly and obsessive to the extent of exhibiting no actual curiosity in the truth that Tung Ku helps run a brothel and opium den along with the on line casino.
Over the course of the motion, a wounded Ling has to cover out in a forest, the place he meets and helps out a Korean monk bitten by a venomous snake. This older man will train him the Pure Tai Chi Palm approach, an equally ugly and efficient technique of fight however will it’s sufficient to assist him win his remaining showdown with Tung Ku? And the way will his feud with Tien Li-chun finish?
Angela Mao went on to make many extra films, together with King Hu’s 1973 wuxia movie, The Destiny of Lee Khan and she or he remained the one feminine to have been given a big struggle scene in any of Bruce Lee’s basic films. She additionally starred in 1974’s The Shrine of Final Bliss, which was at one level scheduled to be Lee’s subsequent movie after Recreation of Dying. Her profession, although, was comparatively brief. By the early Eighties, appearances on the massive display have been uncommon as she targeting her elevating a household and by the early Nineties, she had retired from appearing altogether, serving to run plenty of Taiwanese eating places in America, which she nonetheless does. I guess a few of her spicier meals packs a robust kick.
Each movies are making their debuts on Blu-ray from model new 2K restorations, and that is the primary time Woman Whirlwind has ever been out there within the UK. Particular options embody a restricted version O-Card slipcase that includes new paintings by Darren Wheeling [2000 copies]; a reversible poster that includes the unique theatrical poster paintings; Hapkido is accompanied by a function size audio commentary with Frank Djeng & Michael Price and one other from Frank Djeng & Robert ‘Bobby’ Samuels, whereas the identical duos additionally present new commentaries on Woman Whirlwind, with Samm Deighan additionally contributing a perceptive commentary for that movie. There are additionally archival interviews with Angela Mao, Carter Wong, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, along with a model new interview with Angela Mao, filmed in 2022 and a restricted version collector’s booklet that includes new writing by James Oliver.
For extra on the discharge, click on right here.
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All phrases by Jamie Havlin. Jamie has written a few brief movies screened on British TV and at worldwide festivals and he repeatedly contributes to the glam rock fanzine Wired Up! Extra writing by Jamie may be discovered at his Louder Than Warfare creator’s archive.
