The martial world is struck by a series of cowardly attacks with poison darts. A large part of the survivors of the good clans meets up in the castle of the Lan to discuss how to find the perpetrator of the dastardly deeds.
The poisoner is no sloth, though, and attacks Master Lan right in his own castle, leaving the man on his deathbed. His only hope for survival is something called the Black Herb, a magically potent remedy that can only be found in Soul Valley.
The few martial artists who volunteer for the long and arduous journey to retrieve the Black Herb barely make it out of the castle's door before their hidden enemy strikes and kills them, until Master Lan's daughter Lan Feng (a very young Angela Mao) is the only fighter capable, willing and left standing.
The tough young woman has to trek through some of the more dangerous parts of China. with unsubtle but fitting names like the Angry River (a better name for it would have been "The Explody River", by the way) or the Merciless Pass, while fighting off the thugs and goons Poison Dart (Pai Ying) sends after her. Using a judicious amount of martial arts and willpower, Lan Feng overcomes these obstacles and arrives at her destination. Arriving at Soul Valley turns out to be not enough, though.
The resident hermit (I think played by Fung Ngai) insists on his visitors going through another series of tests (including a short but awesome tyrannosaurus rhino fight). Lan Feng doesn't do too well here, but the hermit is impressed enough by her courage and daughterly sense of duty that he offers her a dose of the Herb if she allows him to rob her of her martial powers. Being the good daughter that she is, the heroine agrees.
Now in possession of the herb, Lan Feng "only" has to return back home without any way to overcome anything more dangerous than a fly in combat and in the possession of a magical herb that not only heals all known poisons but can also be used to double a person's martial prowess. It's not difficult to imagine that there is quite a lot of people willing to kill for the possession of something like this, and soon Lan Feng is on the run from every thug and bad guy around.
Her toughness and intelligence will have to be enough to help her out of more than one tight spot. Fortunately, she also meets the chivalrous swordsman Leng Yu-Han (Kao Yuen) who is more than willing to lend her a hand and his sword.
The Angry River is an early Golden Harvest production with a very young Angela Mao in the lead, and there are more than enough people on the net willing to tell you that it is not an especially interesting or worthwhile film, being made some time before the production house's and the actress' prime.
I'll have to disagree with that quite a bit. Sure, the plot is bog-standard wuxia fare, but - as is so often the case with genre films - its qualities are lying in the execution of well-known elements.
And when it comes to the execution, there's not much I don't find praiseworthy (or, if not praiseworthy, then at least charming) about The Angry River. Mao's performance is not a subtle one, but it is as intense and enthusiastic as one could wish for, making the young and rather headstrong (in a good way) heroine the center of the film even when the script doesn't always trust her to be. The rest of the acting is solid throughout, the fighting performances are energetic, while the fights themselves are about as creatively choreographed as one expects (and sometimes surprisingly bloody).
What really makes the film though is Wong Fung's direction. When he is not overusing the camera's zoom lens, he's occupied with some spectacularly framed location shots, using natural light as beautifully as anyone I can think of, with nary a moment that isn't gorgeous in one way or the other.
But friends of cave sets (and who likes swordplay movies and isn't!?) won't be too disappointed. There is a short yet sweet scene in a rather pretty flower cave with pool and dinosaur that somehow fits tonally quite well into the less artificial looking world that makes up the rest of the film.
Most of the time, The Angry River is a semi-realistic wuxia film with only slight supernatural elements, but there are some short bursts of the sort of moments you'd usually find in a Weird Fu movie (yes, the dinosaur thing again, but also interesting geography like the Angry River itself), giving the film a judicious amount of spice.
It is really a rather exciting film, but one I find relatively difficult to write up as enthusiastically as it deserves, because it mostly does what you'd expect of a film of its type and period. It just does it exceedingly well.
So, if you are at all interested in wuxia movies, there's just no excuse not to grab the dirt cheap Joy Sales DVD and have some fun.
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4 comments:
I was expecting this to be a Western from the title. Suggested sequels/spin-offs:
The Peevish TributaryThe Hair-Trigger FjordThe Strait of IrascibilityBTW, how were the dinosaurs realized? Are we talking suitmation?
Hmm. Blogger seems to have robbed my return key of its power. Bring it on, Blogger.
Probably a very special part of the International Day of Googlefail we have today.
Yes, the dinosaur-thing is a beautiful, jumping rubber-suit creation. Probably with a bigger role in The Somewhat Irritated Brook.
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