Who
is more dangerous to cross, a Guoju Opera star or a Kabuki actor? Judging from
the cinematic evidence, neither is a high percentage play. Kon Ichikawa’s Revenge of a Kabuki Actor is like steak
tartar, cold, elegant, and rich, whereas Chang Cheh’s early Republican revenge
drama is like a seared but still bloody T-bone, yet they are both nourishing
and satisfying. In this case, David Chiang is rather peeved over the gruesome
murder of his older brother in Chang’s Vengeance,
which screens as part of the Quad’s current retrospective, Vengeance is His: Chang Cheh’s Martial Lore, co-presented by the
New York Asian Film Festival.
Frustrated
by his wife’s ill-concealed dalliance with local martial arts power broker Feng
Kaishan, Guan Yulou crashes his school, humiliating the master in front of his
students. Feng maybe had it coming, but he still rounds up fifty or sixty students
and gangsters to ambush Guan in his favorite tea-house. They cut him to shreds,
but Guan still manages to take out two dozen or so attackers, before getting
his eyes gauged out, which gets us about fifteen minutes into the film.
Soon
thereafter, Guan Xiaolu shows up, looking to avenge his brother, because that’s
the name of the film. First, he pays a call on his sister-in-law Hua Zhengfen
to express his slight disappointment in her behavior. Then he pops by to visit her
estranged sister, Hua Zhengfang, an old flame, who is definitely down with Team
Guan. With the help of her information and candlelit suppers, the younger Guan
will track down the mobbed-up Feng and his co-conspirators in the local
government.
This
film means business, just like Guan Xiaolu. There is a heck of a lot of that infamous
bright crimson Shaw Brothers stage-blood getting splashed around here. It is
definitely a martial arts movie, but the action falls into two extremes: gritty
back-alley knife fighting and the refined acrobatic stage performances of Guan
Yulou—the ratio is about one hundred to one, in favor of the former. However,
Chang rather stylishly intersperses flashbacks to Yulou’s performances amid the
carnage of Xiaolu’s throw-downs. In fact, it is sufficiently artistic to make Vengeance a worthy double-feature pairing
with Ichikawa’s Kabuki Actor.
Frankly,
Vengeance is right up there with Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires as one
of Chiang’s coolest movies. He is terrific as the driven, no-screwing-around
Guan Xiaolu. Ku Feng chews the scenery with sinister élan while getting his butt
kicked sideways as the lecherous Feng. Ti Lung also shows some tremendous
physicality as the short-lived Guan brother, whereas Alice Au Yin-ching makes
quite the deliciously catty femme fatale as Zhengfen.
There
is no bait-and-switch or tiresome attempts at subtlety here. It is all payback,
all the time, yet it happens to be one of the more visually stylish films of
the Chang retrospective. What more can you ask for? Very highly recommended, Vengeance screens tomorrow (5/26) and
Monday (5/28), as part of Chang Cheh’s
Martial Lore at the Quad.
