劍女幽魂 (1971)

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劍女幽魂 (1971)

Mission Impossible

Reviewed by: MrBooth
Date: 01/19/2025

For the first hour or so Mission Impossible has a standard wuxia plot, with a stolen sword serving as the McGuffin to send the heroes on a quest and to be attacked at every opportunity by groups of outlandish villains. The plot is pretty thin and not entirely coherent, but the action is plentiful.

If that's all the film was it would be a passable time waster. The action is fun, featuring fanciful choreography with lots of trampolines and surprisingly dramatic undercranking for the period.

Things take a surprising turn in the final act though, with a twist so sharp as to constitute a change of genre. We are denied the conventional wuxia ending where the young heroes team up to mete out justice in a final showdown, but the villain still gets his comeuppance.

Ching Li gives the heroine a stately grace s quite different from the intensity of most contemporary swordswomen. Chen Hung-Lieh brings that elegant, smiling menace that he did so well to the chief villain, and is quite rightly billed as the co-star over Chiang Nam, who is a much less significant presence.

Joseph Kuo's direction is too superficial to fully do justice to the film but he does bring a fun style and energy. The execution is a bit too sloppy to give it an unqualified recommendation, particularly in the first half, but it does have enough that is unique to make it worth a watch for fans of the genre.

(https://the14amazons.co.uk/r53467-Mission_Impossible)

Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: mpongpun
Date: 01/31/2004

This flick is a swordplay flick that takes on a ghostly feeling later on the film. The daughter (Ching Li) of a slain hero (Ma Chi) is on a mission to take the coveted Gold Dragon Sword back to the Capital for safe keeping. The young girl, named Fog Sin Fan, encounters a bunch of thugs at each step but later meets up with the person in charge of all her miseries: a 135 year old man in a 35 year old’s body, Sha Tsu (Chen Hung Lieh)! Sin Fan and Sha Tsu square off, but Sin Fan cannot handle Sha Tsu’s masterful swordplay and later kicks the bucket. Nevertheless, the mission is still not over for Sin Fan as for her, NO mission is impossible; at least it isn’t if you have the Gold Dragon Sword. Eventually, the Gold Dragon Sword makes it back to the Capital and Sin Fan for all her troubles is anointed “fairy-like” status as the “filial Gin”.