Chor Yuen was Gu Long before he started filming Gu Long. The director's first wuxia film, made at Shaws' rival Cathay, finds him relishing in a mode of expression that would later become the signature style of the 'martial-arts suspense thriller' mini-genre. Chor grafts the quasi-psychological stylishness of his Cantonese melodrama onto this actioner, laying on thick the atmosphere by dialling up the fog machine and unleashing the colours from his camera's palette. He also stages his fights in modern dance-like choreography, with moves that are more graceful than ferocious and paused poses that are longer on expressive narcissism than continuity of action. Cold Blade is the quiet beginning of an aesthetic.
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Cast
16 people
Melinda Chen
Lung Mu-hsiang
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A Pearl in Command
Lotus Camp
Kao Yuan
Ling Tien-hsiao
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Cheung Ban
Chai Chun-wu
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Call to Arms
The 14 Amazons
Kong San
Liu Chin
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The Devil's Skin
Lewd Lizard
Paul Chu Kong
Han Chang
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The Killer
Once a Thief
Li Ying
Old Hermit
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Terminal Bound
Songs in Misty Night
Tsung Yu
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Song at Midnight
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Lau Kong
Known for
Hard Boiled
The Prosecutor
Lee Man-Tai
Known for
The Heroine
Snake & Crane Arts of Shaolin
Chen Kuan-tai
Known for
Crippled Avengers
The Boxer from Shantung
Tung Choi-Bo
Known for
Come Drink with Me
Chow Siu-Loi
Known for
Come Drink with Me
Five Element Ninjas
Chor Yuen Director · Wang Zhao-Xi Editor
First release December 31, 1970 · Original title 龍沐香
Production
Cathay Studios
Production
Languages
Original title
龍沐香
Original language
Chinese
Spoken on screen
Chinese
Release dates
Hong Kong SAR China · December 31, 1970
Theatrical · This is a film of great importance. It's the first Mandarin martial arts film by Chor Yuen, marking the turning point in the career of the great director. Chor had enjoyed a successful career in the Cantonese cinema before his highly unlikely feat of making a glorious crossover to the other side of Hong Kong film's dialect divide. After Cold Blade, he would go on to make a string of similarly stylized swordplay films that are considered exemplary works of martial arts cinema. Cold Blade was considered lost when a print was discovered a few years back, generating great excitement despite the misfortune that a segment of the print was without sound. The Hong Kong Film Archive was fortunate to have located another print with a complete soundtrack, safeguarded in France by the collector Marie-Claire Quiquemelle. Though the lengths of the two prints do not match, the Archive's conservation team was able to restore the film to a condition much closer to that of the original. Extensive color grading was also done when this restored print was struck. (HKFA)
No release date listed for United States.
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