Wuxia Season: Last Hurrah For Chivalry (Dir John Woo, 1h47m, 1979)

I'm glad to say it's John Woo time again. Yes, with a certain inevitability, all discussions of wuxia cinema must at least glance sideward at how John Woo, replacing the sword with a gun, but keeping the rest, from feality, to revenge against those who have wronged you, to brothers divided and united in battle, to the sole hero against corrupt and evil institions, essentially modernised wuxia into the heroic bloodshed genre in the early to mid 1980s before taking it westward in the 90s. This transformation, this metamorphosis of the sword to the gun may not bethe focus of a single Woo film, nor the genre in general, but its starting point is undeniably the sole true wuxia film in Woo's filmography,  Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979).

By the 1970s, wuxia had become a major cultural export: a lot of this, ironically, had to do more with kung-fu movies, and this in itself had a lot to do with Enter the Dragon (1973), leading to a whole spate of films that we'd easily identify as wuxia being marketed, largely to keep up with demand, as kung-fu movies (for example, 1972's Boxers of Loyalty and Righteousness and 1977's The Legend of the Condor Heroes.) Moreover, by the late 1970s, the Shaw Brothers' positive cinematic assembly line had begun to break down, and, taking its place, a far more outlandish approach from the studio took its place, in the form of"Swordplay & Intrigue" films, far more focused upon pulpish, horror-centric, or lurid sensibilities, where the wuxia hero could be pitted against detective story, horror thriller or just plain and simple weirdness. It is a period in which wuxia becomes, for lack of a better word, experimental.

Into this, enters John Woo. By the late 1970s, Woo had made a number of kung-fu films, most notably The Dragon Tamers (1975), and Hand of Death (1976), the latter featuring early appearances from Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, along with action movies like Follow the Star (1978); given Woo's mentor, Chang Cheh was a key figure in the genre, directing the sequel to Come Drink with Me (1966), Golden Swallow (1968), and the seminal One Armed Swordsman (1967), it's rather a surprise that Woo took till his tenth film to explore the wuxia genre. Yet, from its very first frame, Last Hurrah for Chivalry is, despite its poor box office gross, and largely forgotten status in his filmography, undeniably peak John Woo. We begin with a marriage betweeen Kao Peng (Lau Kong), the son of a local lord, and his wife, a party that is quickly interrupted by Kao Peng's father's nemesis, the larger than life and frighteningly adept Pak Chung Tong (Lee Hoi-sang).

Pak Chung Tong is a gloriously Woo-ish villain, a wild and nigh unstoppable figure who proceeds to seize the family home back from the men he sees as usurpers, reveal that Kao Peng's wife is in his employ, and murder the young man's father and most of his men, Kao Peng only just escaping as his men sacrifice themselves to slow down the warrior hot on his trail, to be nursed back to health by the former swordsman and martial artist who protects a nigh mythical sword. Bent on revenge, in an aggressive streak that later proves to be more than macho posturing, Ko Peng soon approaches the first of our two heroes. This is Chang San, (Wai Pak), a former warrior still carrying the weight of his fearsome reputation, and the film's secret weapon, a charmingly sincere figure who we see far more at ease looking after his sister, demanding her boyfriend marry her after roughing him up, looking after his ailing mother, and washing down horses than defending people with his sword.

Unfortunately for Chang San, a mysterious swordsman proceeds to attack and kill several of Kao Peng's men to draw him into the open, and so, relucantly, Chang San battles him; here, undeniably, we see the beginning of Woo's "bullet ballet" style, the two fighters moving quickly, jabbing, blocking, counterblocking, throwing each other backwards, the fight wheeling this way and that, the fight becoming ever more frenetic, our hero, and his opponent ever more wounded, including the destruction of an entire tent as it becomes simply another obstacle in their battle, until Chang San is victorious. It is here, although he has been introduced as a character earlier in the film, that we are introduced to Tsing Yi (Damian Lau), a swordsman who, despite being sought after by courtesan, Sau Sau (Bonnie Ngai), is largely concerned only with drinking and fighting.

Tsing Yi proceeds to spend the first half of the film largely in the background, before finally coming face-to-face with Chang San in a smartly done batle at night in the rain where the duo end up becoming fast friends. It is here that Woo begins to explore this brotherhood between these two men, and here that the film, having managed to fit the twists and turns of an entire wuxia adventure, ups its pace into a traditionally Woo-ish atmosphere, as Tsing Yi and Chang San find themselves in a labrinythine set of plots, including the increasingly nefarious schemes of Kao Peng and his desire to own a sword protected by the martial artist, that inexorably draws them closer to Pak Chung Tong's control of the castle that once belonged to Kao Peng. Here, Woo's action chops become positively frenetic, the fight scenes as the duo slowly take the castle back, room by room, fighting everything from chair-wielding lunatic to narcoleptic and horrifically skilled swordsman, before their confrontation with Pak Chung Tong seemingly brings the film to a spectacular ending, only for one final twist to throw the film's entire narrative into a completely different direction, Woo's heroic bloodshed arriving almost fully formed.

What one is left with, for a film that has largely disappeared into the background of Woo's filmography, is this. Last Hurrah for Chivalry is more than just the smartly made, highly modern, and fiendishly plotted tale of two brothers for hire. It's more than two men finding themselves entangled in the battles between a local lord and the tremendously powerful martial artist who has usurped his home that marks the true starting point of one of cinema's great careers. It is the moment that John Woo's thematic, and narrative style crystalised in spectacular and still impressive fashion.

Rating: Highly Recommended.

Last Hurrah for Chivalry is available to watch online in the UK via NowTV, and on DVD from Terracotta, and Criterion. It is also currently available to stream via Criterion Player, and available on DVD from Criterion in the United States.

Next week, wuxia arrives in the 2000s with a swordsman fighting would-be assassins after the first emperor of China, in the form of Hero.

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