Review: Chinese boxing and engaging drama converge in The Bastard, a rare and intimate pairing of celebrated Shaw Brothers director Chor Yuen and Yuen Wo Ping in one of his first action directing gigs.

Chor Yuen's greatest asset as a director is his ability to wove kung fu into a well-crafted story that justifies the action, a talent all too rare among his peers. In this case, Chung Wa (Killer Clans) shed his heroic image to play a nameless young man raised and trained in kung fu by an aged hermit. In the only training sequence you witness during the opening credits, he is instructed to be able to use anything as a weapon if necessary. (More on that later.) Chung Wa ventures into the world for the first time in order to find his family and saves a scruffy-looking girl from men intent on taking advantage of her. Lily Li is a spunky beggar in a role reminiscent of Polly Kuan's charming character in Back Alley Princess, minus any martial arts ability. The two become friends and Lily uses her street smarts to help Chung adjust to life among people. As Chung continues his search for his parents with the aid of Lily, the men he had beaten return to their master, Gu Chang Bo (Cheng Miu) to set a trap for him. Once the trap is sprung, they realize that he strongly resembles Gu's son and that he may be a lost brother. From this point on, Chung is treated very well in Gu's household and is even seduced by his attractive cousin. But not all is as it seems and Lily, who is distraught over Chung's fling with his wily cousin, is the first to notice. When Chung is betrayed by his own father, Lily comes to his aid. Subsequently, Chung is unable to do the same for her and goes for revenge, despite his reluctance to harm others.

The Bastard refreshingly breaks out of the mold of mindless revenge plots and convoluted swordplay epics to offer a small scale, story-driven film with a sober moral that translates well in any language. Chung Wa is in one of his best roles. After appearing in one swordplay film after another, he came to be typecast as the enigmatic killer with a wide-brimmed hat whose only task was to dole out pain and icy stares. But here he actually gets to act. His character has grown up with only his hermit master as companion and thus is thoroughly unschooled in the ways of human behavior. He's slow to learn, especially when feminine wiles are involved. Due to his social dysfunctions, he plays the victim for most of the film, despite the fact that his kung fu skill cannot be matched. Only when it's too late, does he come around and unleash his full potential as a fighter. But even then, he continues to play a character who is hesitant to harm others. It may sound reasonable, but having this kind of selective reasoning is rare in this genre where body counts are often high. The most memorable moment in the film finds Chung Wa dangling at the end of his moral reserve when he screams for all hired thugs to get lost so that he will only have to harm those who truly deserve it. It's a great moment, brought to you by the genius of Chor Yuen!

Likewise, kung fu queen Lily Li also gets one of her better roles. This was still during the period when she generally played non-combatants, but she displays enough character to make up for her lack of fighting. The irony of her character being the strongest of conviction, but also the most emotionally unstable is wonderfully staged. She's a beauty who leaps off the screen in most of her roles, but especially in this one. Be warned though, she does endure some unsavory treatment at the hands of four thugs and the director pulls few punches, although thankfully without being graphic.

With Yuen Wo Ping and brother Cheung Yan on call as choreographers, it's virtually guaranteed that the action is good. Good, but not great. There is no emphasis on style or form and trampolines are used liberally. The Yuen Clan comes from Peking Opera roots where acrobatics rule. There is a lot of flips and leaps, but the actual foot and leg work emulates the kind of straightforward style that dominated classic kung fu films of the early '70's. There is very little in the way of creative choreography or camera angles that defined their later work. It doesn't help that there are no notable kung fu actors playing villains. Chung Wa does a decent job in the lead, but without an equal, the final fight just becomes unhinged as the villains attempt to run away. The one very nice exception is when he briefly faces Wu Chih Ching wielding two swords, with nothing but a thin reed - which brings us back to his training at the beginning of the film. This unraveling melee may be a little disappointing for action buffs, but it works well dramatically.

There is an air of fatalism to The Bastard that projects a sad statement about evil and innocence, wealth and poverty. This film almost better resembles Japanese cinema which is usually more adept at dramatically portraying the human condition and it's ugly side in period action films. The kung fu only plays a part in this film, rather than dominating it. But with top performances by Chung Wa and Lily Li, this is a great little gem that should not be overlooked for lack of gratuitous bloodletting.

Being brought up by a mentor at a secluded part of the country, an orphan (Chung Wa - Killer Clans) begins his journey to locate his parents. By the first person he stumbles onto, he is nicknamed Little Bastard (due to his orphan status) and soon he meets the beggar Hsiao Yi (Lily Li - The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter & The Young Master), whom he strikes up a friendship with. She educates him in the ways of the world and while observing actions at the local brothel, Little Bastard is spotted and recognized as the second son of the wealthy Gu Cheng Bo. The first son is however stuck in prison after the murder of an official but recognizing the bastards innocence, Gu and his family sees the opportunity to seduce one son with their wealth in order to free another one...

No doubt, this is as depressing as they come. Chor Yuen's magnificent tale of innocence abused, deceived and exploited struck quite a chord with me on my first viewing, one where I had decided beforehand that being a Shaw Brother's movie and all, I couldn't possible muster up any clear thoughts to put into writing. It's wonderful to be surprised in regards to that though and to find gems. Chor Yuen's 1973 effort The Bastard proves to be one such. However, this is all very much due to MY emotional response to the themes of the film. There's absolutely NO guarantee that YOU will be taking the same trip emotionally during the film.

It actually proves to be helpful to examine Chor's drama (with doses of martial arts action) a second time because I didn't realize that much of the film's success comes in the long run, rather than thanks to 100 minutes of flawless scenes. It's really an age old story of innocence, one that shares similarities with a 90s new wave kung fu effort by Johnnie To, The Bare-Footed Kid (which in itself was a remake of the Chang Cheh film Disciples Of Shaolin). Subtlety, especially when it comes to the bigger emotions on display is certainly not Chor Yuen's strength, but adding everything up, and receiving a beautiful and poignant coda to the film, Chor Yuen has really hammered home his theme in no lesser way than masterfully.

That negativity in previous paragraph does not suggest that large parts of the film doesn't work. It actually unexpectedly does, on a fairly sophisticated level thanks to the production values as well. As I mentioned, Chor Yuen gave us many pleasing visual palettes throughout his films and even though the Shaw Brother's stages really do come off as just that, stages, Chor creates an immersing world despite that. He loves, and arguably perhaps too much, to create depth of frame by shooting through the foreground but nevertheless, the very competent camerawork, the showcasing of the detailed Shaw's sets, brings The Bastard home technically.

Going into the themes and portrayal of this particular world, which is not one set in any Wuxia universe by the way, with his main actors Chung Wa and Lily Li, Chor works with two obviously very sympathetic characters. Chung's Little Bastard rightfully goes into the world with a positive frame of mind, only to ultimately receive a very downbeat and cruel lesson. By his side is one that actually knows all about that world, Hsiao Yi or Little Beggar, yet the ultimate message in Yau Gong-Kin's screenplay is not about goodness overpowering evil. It's rather a sad statement, one that applies to modern day, about the dark powers that are allowed to roam within wealth.

The actors pull through by the end but it's not without slight bumps along the way that threatens what is one of the central and crucial points of the film to do right. Chung Wa (usually cast as a swordplay hero) does overplay his innocence and ignorance for a large part of the film but he achieves a good balance when the writing takes the character to places of realization, when he actually does become aware of the cruelty around him. Lily Li's main character trait consists of a distinct facial mugging but it's really at the same time as Chung Wa's character that the writing provides her with additional realization. All that she knows may not be her saving grace after all and that is a point where Lily hits a memorable stride in her performance.

Since The Bastard does feature a character that's been taught the way of martial arts, we do get action as well, choreographed by none other than Yuen Woo-Ping and his brother Yuen Cheung-Yan. For the longest of time, action is only provided in short bursts, quite admirably serving to the story. Style is actually less of a style and outside the overuse of trampoline shots, the rough hand to hand combat compliments the film (and the filmmaking era it's from). It's only towards the end, which logically would feature a showdown, that the movie betrays a little of its previous drama and goes a few notches too big on the fight scale. I don't know, somewhere in even this production, commercial interest may have existed so perhaps this was added on way too much so that you could label the film more of an martial arts drama in marketing. I wouldn't know...

Regardless of that misstep, in the views of this curious and evolving admirer of the Shaw Brother's era, The Bastard stands as a drama classic of unexpected layered proportions. Combine Chor Yuen's handling of that aspect in combination with a superbly shot film on the well-crafted Shaw Brother's sets, and you'll get a film with a poignant, bleak view of the world, a feeling that can only set in after the final frame of the film. That's important to note.

Chung Wa is the naïve nameless 'bastard' of the title who believes he has has found his father only to discover that he is an unwitting pawn in a sinister plot that threatens to make him the scapegoat for the murder of a government official. Lucky for him that he spent his formative years learning martial arts and is now a seemingly invincible kung fu master.

The more of Chor Yuan's work that I watch, the more it becomes clear that he placed as much importance on intelligent plotting as he did on creating captivating action scenes and 'The Bastard' is no exception. Both Chung Wa and Lily Li are given roles that they can really sink their teeth into, and they do. Lily Li, in a non action role as a beggar girl, almost steals the show with an incredibly spirited but touching performance and provides one side of a romantic triangle. Chung Wa gives his character and air of naivety and vulnerability despite the fact that he is more than capable of defending himself.

The film culminates in one of those early seventies style frantic free for alls where choreography is not so stylised but the action is incredibly captivating as the hero faces almost insurmountable odds. By the time the final showdown arrives Chor Yuan has been careful to load just the right amount of emotional content to really make the audience care about the outcome.