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.
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9. Fire Dragon (1994)
Neither director Yuen Woo-ping nor Lin are at their best in this run-of-the-mill wuxia, although a fiery finale is well staged.
Lin plays an assassin who sees the error of her evil ways when she’s taken in by a family she was meant to kill.
A long middle section sees Lin channelling the softer dramatic heroines she played in the 1980s.
However, there is nothing new in the wirework and acrobatics.
8. Handsome Siblings (1992)
This cash-in on Swordsman II is not the best of the wire-fu films of the 1990s, but it’s not the worst either.
The story was adapted from famed martial arts novelist Gu Long’s 1966 novel, but director Eric Tsang Chi-wai mashed up the storyline so that – no surprises here – Lin’s character could disguise herself as a man.
7. Royal Tramp II (1992)
Lin has a bigger role in the sequel than in part one, metamorphosing into the leader of the Dragon Sect originally played by Cheung Man; the hero, played by Stephen Chow Sing-chi, claims this is an “improvement”.
No one can outshine Stephen Chow in a Stephen Chow film, but Lin still has a powerful presence, drifting in and out of the story to add style and class to the rambunctious humour.
Lin performs her usual post-Swordsman II shtick of posing, leaping and swirling her voluminous clothes, but although she sometimes looks boyish, androgyny is not really a part of lowbrow director Wong Jing’s scheme.
The storyline, about getting rid of the current dynasty and restoring a former, is simply a framework for Chow’s antics.
6. Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)
Lin does not appear for very long in Zu, but she takes the opportunity to strike prototypes of the poses that would become the hallmark of her later films, and to practice her wire work.
Lin’s actions are less defined at this point, and she looks delicate and elfin rather than strong and dominant. The actress suffered for many hours while the make-up department constructed her towering hairdo.
5. The East Is Red (1993)
Lin’s Invincible Asia, who died at the end of part two, somehow returns as an even more vengeful and vicious character. By now, Lin has said she was simply working hard to make money so that she could retire, but she still performs with gusto.
4. Ashes of Time (1994)
Wong’s clever idea references the dual sexuality of Invincible Asia without copying it, although a scene of Lin dominating the waves was inserted to directly reference her work with Tsui Hark.
Lin found Wong’s reluctance to provide a script unnerving at first, but later said that the film featured one of the few performances she likes. Lin also appeared in Jeffrey Lau Chun-wai’s martial arts comedy The Eagle Shooting Heroes, which was shot during delays in filming Ashes of Time.
3. New Dragon Gate Inn (1992)
In contrast to Invincible Asia, Lin’s character Yau Mok-sau is vulnerable and sensitive, and suffers emotionally from a love triangle which involves Tony Leung Ka-fai and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk.
Tsui continues to explore his fascination with bending Lin’s gender, although here she is very definitely a woman disguised as a man.
Tsui includes a flirtatious scene between Lin and Cheung to spice things up and continue the theme of sexual exploration which had generally been taboo in Confucian-influenced martial arts films before Swordsman II.
2. The Bride with White Hair (1993)
Invincible Asia is Lin’s most iconic role, but the White-Haired Bride is her most definitive performance. Lin is not a big part of the sequel, The Bride with White Hair 2.
1. Swordsman II (1992)
“It is Brigitte Lin, as Asia the Invincible, who really put people on their knees,” wrote a local critic a year after the film’s release. “The film created a wave of gender-bending roles, with Lin imitating herself in Royal Tramp and Handsome Siblings.”
Swordsman II was directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark.
