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The Black Killer
(1967)
Director: Cheung Wai Gwong
Cast: Connie Chan, Sek Kin, Adam Cheng
Publisher:
Winson; Format: VCD, DVD (Region 0)
English
subtitles: No
Long before Michelle Yeoh kicked
her way to international stardom, Connie Chan was Hong
Kong’s reigning action queen. In fact, Connie was kicking butts
even before director Chang Cheh ushered in his era of
yanggang (masculinity) that radically changed the face
of Hong Kong cinema. While he is given credit for injecting sweat and
blood into the martial-arts film and for creating macho superstars
out of Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, and Ti Lung, none of this could
have happened without the hard-hitting and creative action choreography
of Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai. But before they joined Chang at Shaw
Brothers, Lau and Tong provided the moves for Connie and Josephine
Siao in such martial-arts classics as Jade in the
Red Dust (1966) and Aftermath of a Fire (1966)
and in the modern-day action films that exploded onto the screen in
1966-67. Of Connie’s action movies currently available on video, The
Black Killer is unquestionably the best. The fights are tense
and powerful, and the factory finale shows Lau and Tong’s innovation
in moving the action through an environment, a hallmark of Hong Kong action
cinema that would reach its pinnacle in the films of Jackie Chan.
But a great action movie requires
more than a strong hero and awesome fight scenes. It also
needs a formidable opponent. Here it is provided by Sek Kin
who gives a stunning physical and emotional performance. Sek
Kin reached the heights of international recognition opposite
Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (1973), but
he was long familiar to Chinese audiences as the villain in the
perennial Wong Fei Hung films of the 1950s. He was so good at playing
the bad guy that he made a career out of it. During the 60s he appeared
in countless wuxia films, a whopping 71 of which co-starred Connie—that’s
almost three times the number of movies she made with leading man Lui
Kei! In The Black Killer Sek plays the gang boss who has kidnapped
Connie’s uncle. Connie goes undercover as a young tough and successfully
gains his trust until the inevitable moment of revelation and betrayal.
The intense relationship between them elevates the film above some
of the other action quickies they made together.
Of course, the main reason to
watch The Black Killer is none other
than Connie. And in this film, that equals two reasons, since
Connie plays both the brother and the sister who must rescue
their uncle. Double roles are a favorite gimmick in Chinese cinema,
going back at least to Twin Sisters (1933), which pioneered
split-screen technology so that Shanghai movie queen Hu Die could
play opposite herself. Since Connie had performed both male and
female roles throughout her career, this dual role capitalized
on her feminine and her masculine charm. The role gets even more convoluted
later in the film when Connie the sister masquerades as Connie the
brother and vice versa, a delirious predicament that delightfully
explodes the boundaries of gender. In the end, there is only Connie,
handsome and beautiful, tough yet tender. It’s no wonder that she
was the idol of Chinese women during the rapid social changes of the
1960s.
Reviewed
by Dave Wells |
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Connie teaches David Chiang
a thing or two!
Action maestro Lau Kar-leung (far right)
plays one of the thugs.
Connie wins the respect of gang boss
Sek Kin.
Connie is the epitome of cool in The
Black Killer.
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