Brigitte Lin’s wuxia films: from Fire Dragon to The East Is Red and Swordsman II, the Hong Kong cinematic superstar’s fantasy martial arts roles ranked from worst to best
- Brigitte Lin, the queen of fantasy martial arts films, starred alongside Gong Li, Andy Lau, Tony Leung and Stephen Chow among others
- She made 10 films in the course of three years, some of them pretty forgettable but others well worth seeing. See if you agree with our ranking of them
Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia was the icon of the fantasy martial arts boom in Hong Kong cinema of the early 1990s.
Below, we rank her wuxia movies, from worst to best.
11. The Dragon Chronicles – The Maidens (1994)
Both actresses strike poses and fly around on wires, but the story is indecipherable without a knowledge of the book, and perhaps even with it.
10. Deadful Melody (1994)
Interest in fantasy martial arts films had waned when Deadful Melody was released, and it played to relatively empty theatres.
Lin’s image was used on the local poster, but she’s only in a few full scenes, and is otherwise chopped into the film every 10 minutes to justify the publicity.
The story, by screenwriting giant Ni Kuang, revolves around a murderous guzheng (a Chinese stringed instrument), and features Lin copying her flouncy antics in Swordsman II and The Bride with White Hair.