[KFCC] Flying Dagger Review

Story: ‘Big and Little Flying Dagger’ (Tong Leung and Jimmy Lin) are bounty hunters whose attempts at capturing bandits are often scuppered by ‘Big and Little Bewitchment’ (Sharla Chang and Gloria Yip). When they are asked to capture a particularly heinous bandit and murderer called ‘The Nine Tails Fox’ (Jackie Cheung), they take up the challenge with gusto. Very quickly, it becomes obvious that Fox is not the bad guy in this story.

Review: Once again, Wong Jing spawns a little piece of madness. If you ever find yourself watching a Hong Kong film with smatterings of smut, jokes about homosexuality and ideas borrowed from other movies, look carefully at the credits and you can find Wong Jing’s name somewhere. At first glance, you might not realise he is involved, and then a little research reveals that he was lurking somewhere in the background. The fact that he produced and wrote ‘Flying Dagger’ is obvious after the first fart gag, but this is one of those movies that makes up for the many duffers in Wong Jing’s career.

Wong Jing attempts to emulate a Stephen Chow style spoof, and while it lacks the flare of the ‘Jim Carrey of HK’, it does pull off a lot of successful laughs. Basically sending up the Wuxia genre, there are enough interesting ideas in here to justify the moments that fall flat or get lost in the weak subtitles. Speaking of subtitles, look out for “I drink your human milk”.

The cast is excellent. All of them are major players from the late 80’s and early 90’s, and it is especially good to see Maggie Cheung and Jackie Cheung playing the kind of amiable characters that they so easily made their own before their careers sent Jackie to concentrate on his singing career, and Maggie to marry a Frenchman and make arthouse films. Jackie and Maggie definitely steal the film as lovable rogues. Jackie plays the usual amiable fool, and Maggie sends up the child-like, pouting doormat roles she so often plays, while still finding time to fall easily back into the tough girl role that she occasionally shines in. Even Ng Man Tat (last seen in Shaolin Soccer) joins in the fun.

The comedy is variable. Attempting Stephen Chow style comedy, it makes sly refernces to a number of HK classics, but sometimes the knowledge that this is a Wong Jing script raises the question of whether this is true spoof, or simply a comedy with the usual Jing plagiarism. Even an Addam’s Family style roaming hand plays part in things. It’s not a new idea, but it fits in well enough among the madness.

The action is handled by Ching Siu Tung, the man responsible for the better parts of Chinese Ghost Story and Duel to the Death, and his influence is not only obvious, but provides some of the high points of the film. Based in wire-work rather than true martial arts, the action is rapid fire, kinetic and exciting. People bounce around the screen like jumping beans, and one of the films early fights, combatants leap from tree to tree, throwing swords through a seemingly indestructible fighter, then a tree is uprooted, and flown through the air to crush an opponent. It isn’t so novel to the hardened HK movie fan, but it’s still entertaining. Wong Jing even works a reference to Ching Siu Tung’s earlier work ‘Swordman II’, with a crafty twist on Asia the Invincible’ in the form of ‘Erotomania Man’ and his ladyboy wife.

‘Flying Dagger’ is a typical Wong Jing film, but definitely one of his better efforts, possibly because somebody else directed it. It was evidently a lot of fun to make, and at a tidy 86 minutes, finds time to include flatulent men with fox tails, a cat woman, spiky bras, treetop battles, a gay kiss (!), and a lot more best discovered for yourself. Considering that this is an inferior imitation of Forbidden City Cop, it very nearly beats Stephen Chow at his own game.