Hong Kong martial arts cinema: Golden Swallow, Chang Cheh’s 1968 swordplay classic
- Golden Swallow is regarded by film critics as Chang’s best swordplay movie, a view shared by the legendary director
- He considered it ‘the peak of the wuxia genre’; the film starred famous female martial arts actress Cheng Pei-pei
Chang Cheh is best-known for 1967’s groundbreaking swordplay film One-Armed Swordsman, which, along with King Hu’s equally influential Come Drink With Me (1966), began the successful trend of new-style wuxia (martial heroes) films.
But Chang’s Golden Swallow (1968) is generally regarded by local critics as his finest swordplay movie, a view held by the director himself, who pronounced it “the peak of the wuxia genre” in his memoir.
The film has many merits, notably a carefully and subtly crafted script co-written by Chang.
Although Golden Swallow highlights many of the concerns that would come to be emblematic of his work – male bonding through violence, fractured codes of chivalry, and an obsession with dying and how to die correctly – the movie benefits from a sophisticated romantic triangle that was unusual in a wuxia film of the time.
As critic Stephen Teo writes: “Chang turns his wuxia picture into … a study of conflicting personas, making Golden Swallow the first wuxia picture with wenyi [romantic melodrama] elements.”