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| Images courtesy of 88 Films |
While Shout Factory and Arrow Video continue to unveil more
Shaw Brothers boxed sets with numerous titles comprised together in the United
States and the United Kingdom, fellow boutique labels Eureka Entertainment and
especially 88 Films have been putting Hong Kong titles out individually and/or
paired together with one or two other films.
As with most of the forthcoming 88 Films Hong Kong releases and part of
their 88 Asia Collection replete with a dragon silhouette logo, their releases
come packaged with a limited slipcover featuring original artwork, reversible
sleeve art in an amaray case and a double-sided foldout poster. Now the question becomes whether or not these
standalone releases from 88 are worthy of the price tag or the moniker
established by the boutique label? In
the case of Shen Chiang and Stanley Siu Wing’s 1975 Shaw Scope swordplay epic Lady
of the Law, the answer is a resounding yes.
In period China, Jiao Tianhao (Tung Lin) who is escorting
cargo across the countryside is ambushed by bandits dubbed the Four Devil
Spirits who kidnap and threaten to draw and quarter his son Yaner. Managing to escape with his son but not
without sustaining a life-threatening injury, Jiao passes off the Flaming
Dagger martial arts manual to Yaner who himself is nearly killed by a rival
escorting group when a young martial arts master-in-training Leng Rushuang and
her instructor Madam White Brows intervene.
Hastily, the escorting group led by Chen Huatang (Yang Chi-ching) takes
the boy Yaner into their care. A decade
passes and Yaner (Lo Lieh) now an adult has been secretly teaching himself the
Flaming Dagger techniques while Leng Rushuang (Shih Szu from The Lady Hermit)
has garnered a reputation as the most feared titular Lady of the Law swordswoman
of the land as a ruthless unstoppable upholder of law and order.
Meanwhile, a serial rapist murderer who happens to be Chen’s
son (played by Dean Shek of Drunken Master) preying on women passing
through their inn kills the concubine of an important political figure. The night of the murder, a bystander who
witnessed the crime is blinded by Chen’s son, losing his sight but remembering
the killer’s voice clearly. Determined
to protect his son’s reputation, Chen Huatang and his cronies decide to frame
and pin the crime on innocent bystander Yaner with Leng Rushuang ushered in to
bring Yaner into incarceration. However
when Yaner escapes captivity and becomes a fugitive from justice, utilizing the
Flaming Dagger techniques, she begins to second guess the situation as Yaner
relentlessly tries to track down the only witness to the crime who can prove
his innocence.
A rape-revenge crime thriller as wuxia replete with stunning
fight choreography including but not limited to a tightrope walked sword battle,
captured in scope widescreen by Lam Kwok-Cheung and a rousing score by Frankie
Chan, Lady of the Law is a solid Shaw Scope offering with one of the
subgenre’s most formidable heroines.
Take for instance a scene in which the dumb rapist actually tries to drug
and assault her in her bedroom, and she picks up on it and is several steps
ahead of him before foiling his plan.
Throughout the film, as she upholds the law, she finds herself
tirelessly battling entire armadas of swordfighters and bow and arrow attacks while
never losing sight of her single-minded goal of tracking down Yaner. With arrestingly choreographed sequences
where the camera seems to glide above the performers engaged in battle, it
becomes something of a filmmaking tour-de-force which will remind western
filmgoers of a certain House of Blue Leaves fight with its bird's-eye view camerawork.
Made in 1971 but held off the market until 1975 for no known
reason other than the Bruce Lee hand fighting combat films dominated the landscape
at the time, the underrated and unfortunately clandestine Shaw Scope offering
is one of the company’s best kept secrets filmgoers here are only catching onto
now. With the popularity of the Shaw
Brothers catalog arguably at its peak in the west, 88 Films release of Lady
of the Law is a most welcome addition to the Hong Kong film fanatic’s
ongoing ever-expanding libraries. With a
clean digital restoration of the original camera negative in scope 2.35:1 as
well as a running audio commentary with David West, the 88 Films package while
a bit bare bones on disc extras comes with enough physical extras to make up
for their absence. Longtime fans of Hong
Kong Shaw Scope will eat this up right away while newcomers are in for an
overlooked martial arts revenge treat.
--Andrew Kotwicki
