Hurricane Sword by Lim Won-shik (Review)
You know you’re watching a bad kung fu movie when the most thrilling fight takes place between two roosters in a cockfight. And you know you’re watching a really bad — no, a painfully bad — kung fu movie when the roosters are dubbed.
I was browsing the local Hollywood video and stopped, as I always do, in the “Martial Arts” section. Now, this section is usually where you’ll find all of Jackie Chan’s early films, like The Deadly Meteors and Master with Cracked Fingers; early Chow Yun-Fat pictures that aren’t really kung fu films, but are Asian films with lots of violence; and stuff that even Chuck Norris wouldn’t do. But you also find all of those obscure kung fu films that you’ve never heard of… the kind of stuff that probably showed during “Kung Fu Theatre,” but you’re not sure. So, being the adventurous movie viewer that I am, I rented Hurricane Sword, thinking I might see some lost Shaw Brothers classic like The Five Deadly Venoms or Chinese Super Ninjas.
Due to the impersonal nature of the Web, there’s really no way for me to accurately convey how disappointed I was. I can’t used comical gestures or facial expressions as I attempt to convey my state of mind when I realized how truly excruciating it would be to sit through Hurricane Sword. But, in order to remain a thin veil of objectivity and journalistic integrity, I’ll attempt to describe the movie.
The heroine of the story is a blind woman named Elaine (I’m assuming we lost something in the translation) who has supposedly mastered an obscure form of swordfighting called “Hurricane Sword” (though we never really learn what a “Hurricane Sword” is, exactly). At the film’s beginning, she rescues an old man being chased by a group of men. It turns out the old man is an escaped convict looking for his daughter. Of course, Elaine was abandoned by her mother as a child, so we get several flashbacks to elaborate on this point. Elaine agrees to help this man because he reminds her of an old man who took care of her, named Uncle Louie, and so she can find her mother. Now, this being a kung fu movie, someone is bound to run afoul of someone else, and Elaine runs afoul of a local crimelord and the madame of the local brothel. This all leads up to a predictable conclusion… the madame is Elaine’s mother. Don’t worry… I didn’t spoil anything for you. Trust me.
There are several other plot points, involving Elaine and her training (and her boyfriend/master), as well as the aforementioned cockfight. And there are the fights (those not involving roosters). At least, I think there were fights. I mean, I saw people move and swing swords, but most of it took place offscreen. I actually think the cameraman was trying to film everything but the good stuff. But even so, I don’t get any feeling that, if I could see the action, it’d be really worth watching.
I’m honestly surprised that I remembered this much about the film, because I spent most of the movie trying to keep myself from fast forwarding. This is honestly a terrible film, though not the worst film I’ve ever seen. That would still have to be Dirty Dancing. At least with Hurricane Sword, I can close my eyes and imagine all of the butt-kicking this movie might have contained. Of course, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I see either movie again in this lifetime.