During the ’70s, the major Hollywood studios didn’t see a point in letting women headline action films. It was good enough for them that the male action hero would yank her across the screen. But in Hong Kong, Shaw Brothers studio had no problem casting women as the main action star in a movie. They were always looking for actresses that could pull off fight choreography. Lily Ho was such a discovery. The Taiwanese actress came to Hong Kong to work on Shaw Brothers films starting with The Knight of Knights in 1966. She starred in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan and 14 Amazons. Lady With A Sword (1971) put her front and center as the lady with a sword. She didn’t need to find a male swordsman to tackle the bad guys. More importantly was the film was directed by Kao Pao-shu, a longtime Shaw Brothers actress given her first chance to call the shots. Lady With A Sword is a female driven action film on both sides of the camera.
A mother and her son Hu Tou (Attack of the Kung Fu Girls‘ Yuen-Man Meng) are riding through the countryside on horseback when they stop for a break. The son finds a rabbit that’s been killed with an arrow. Out from the woods come four rather goonish men who aren’t happy with the kid and the mother being on their turf. Bad things happen to the mother. Her son barely escapes and flees to the estate of Aunt Feng Fei Fei (Lily Ho). She is so angry that her sister has been murdered. Turns out Feng is a masterful in sword fighting so she’s not looking to hire anyone to do the dirty work of revenge. She and the nephew go searching for the four men with the only clue being the arrow that was in the rabbit. She discovers the killers hanging out a high-class brothel. She fights them at first in classic gravity defying wuxia battle. Eve though she’s winning, Feng notices something that causes her to grab her nephew and retreat from the brothel. This is not going to be a simple case of revenge when Feng’s complication is revealed to the disappointed nephew.
Lady With A Sword does a great job of starting out “simple.” It looks like a direct revenge film with Feng hacking away on the men who deserve to be turned into bloody stumps. But the movie throws a great twist so there is the right amount of intrigue. Feng realizes the killers aren’t strangers from the outside. Not to give it away, but it’s a twist that fits her female hero. She’s not playing a role written for a man. Director Kao Pao-shu is innovative in the fight scenes. The most astounding is how she edits the parallel fights with Feng in the brothel while Hu Tou deals with an attacker at the outdoor restaurant. The scenes shift on action and motion in the edits. This alone elevates the film. She also directs a rather cruel moment in the final action scene. Lily Ho pulls off the sword fighting. The young Yuen-Man Meng holds his own against adults. While Kao Pao-shu would direct 10 more films, this was her only movie for Shaw Brothers. She created a top-notch female wuxia adventure in Lady With A Sword.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. You’re seeing this film in pure Shawscope! There’s a lot of exterior shots so the transfer brings out the textures of nature. The Audio is Mandarin LPCM 2.0 mono. You’ll hear all the clanging from the sword play. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by David West, the author of Chasing Dragons. The name of the film in Chinese is Feng Fei Fei. He points out how the film came after Jimmy Wang Yu’s Chinese Boxer that altered Shaw’s fortunes with Kung Fu fighting.
Stills Gallery (2:32) includes press photos,
Mini-poster has original artwork on one side and Kung Fu Bob’s new work on the other side.
88 Films presents Lady With A Sword: Limited Edition. Directed by Kao Pao-shu. Screenplay by Kuang Ni. Starring Lily Ho, Seok-hoon Nam, Hsieh Wang, Yuen-Man Meng, Chih Hsien Po, No Tsai, Lin Ching, Wen-Chung Ku, Sha-Fei Ouyang, Chien Ting, Peng-Fei Li & Hai Lung Li. Running Time: 89 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: April 22, 2025.
