Directed by King Hu
Written by King Hu and Shan-Hsi Ting
1966/Hong Kong
Shaw Brothers
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Fan Ta-p’i: They call me Drunken Cat[/box]
Good early chop-socky movie was marred somewhat on my viewing by bad English dubbing.
Evil henchmen kidnap Golden Swallow’s brother, the Governor’s son, and hold him hostage in exchange for their imprisoned leader. The forces of good in the form of sister Golden Swallow (Pei-Pei Chen) and crafty beggar Drunken Cat battle all comers to save the day.
This is watchable for the many action sequences. Pei-Pei Chen is a revelation as the female warrior – her boy disguise is never convincing. The dubbing was of the type where it sounds like all the male characters are voiced by the same actor. But the plot is not the reason to watch any way. It’s a pretty fun time.
I liked this more than most people. Maybe something to do with my low expectations. Pei-Pei really is a wonder to watch. It was mentioned in the extra material that she has a background in ballet and that the director wanted her to make her fighting like a dance. I think that comes through very well. There is something very fluid and rhythmically about it.
The version I watch was in Cantonese with subtitles. I think that is preferable to miserable dubbing.
Give me sub-titles every time! And this dubbing was particularly poor. I also enjoyed watching Pei-Pei Chen. Wish I had been able to view the extras. My DVD player has been on the fritz and I’ve been watching streaming only Today it should be fixed!
I saw Come Drink with Me, Daisies and Seconds within a few weeks of each other, and for a while there, I thought 1966 was the greatest year for movies EVER!
Well, we’ve got one of the really, really great years coming up if I can just slog through this one.