Murky Shadows Over The Gorges (1985)

Movie Reviews from featuring movies from our catalog
Posts: 541
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:29 pm

Murky Shadows Over The Gorges (1985)

Postby samtheseed » Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:38 am

Starring: Suen Gin-Ming. Cheung Hei-Ling. Chui Ngai.

I watched this one without the benefit of subtitles. This one had a slightly more complex plot than the other films i had watched. So it was a bit challenging to figure out what was going on. Let's see my notes on the film:

In the beginning of the movie, the Qings are taking people into slavery/servitude. A guy and his sister end up getting pushed over a cliff. She is rescued and is taken to be a servant. Some years later, there seems to be some sort of conflict between the local militia, appears to be being trained by an old guy with a moustache and a peasant rebellion, led by a young man with awesome skills. When the daughter of the militia trainer is saved from the peasants by their leader, she falls for him. This incurs the anger of the lead member of the militia, who loves the girl too.

In the second half of the movie, we learn that the daughter's new boyfriend isn't such a good guy after all (although i couldn't figure what his motives were). In disguise, he kills the father/militia trainer. The servant girl, who loved the lead member of the militia, discovers that the guy is no good. The jealous militia guy takes him on but gets killed. So it's up to the daughter and the servant, who had been hiding her kung fu skills until now, to teach the guy a lesson. The movie ends on a rather sudden battle scene between the Qings and rebels and the fate of surviving protagonists is ambiguous.

Before anything else, the scenery is outstanding. The shots of the titular gorges and the river that passes through them are just compelling. You just can't go wrong with those Chinese landscapes.

The fighting is only sporadic. The actors however, are very talented. The guy who plays the lead character (the bad guy in disguise) is very good and has some awesome kicks. The others are very solid, too. The girl who plays the servant does some very good Pa Kua (baguazhang) at the end. There are prerequisite scenes of extra's doing some various weapons forms and stuff and they're all very good. The last 15 minutes, which begins with a fight between the two male rivals and ends with the lead taking on the two vengeful women is pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, one of the principal fights, the lead vs, the militia leader, is filmed in the dark and basically impossible to see.

Return to “FLK Reviews”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests