“The Face Behind the Mask” Promotional
Director: Chan Chi Hwa
Cast: Hsu Feng, Yueh Hua, Lo Lieh, Woo Kei, Go Ming, Jade Hsu Git, Miu Tin, Sit Hon, Lee Man Tai, Au Lap Bo, Chan Sam Lam, Cheung Chung Kwai
Running Time: 90 min.
By Martin Sandison
During the mid-noughties the DVD market in Europe was still pretty strong, and at this time the irrepressible number one old school kung fu movie expert Toby Russell set up his Rarescope label. I bought a few at the time, and have bought others as the years have gone on. Titles like Showdown at the Cotton Mill and Along Comes the Tiger were unreleased at the time on DVD, and Toby managed to track down 35mm prints of these rare, brilliant old movies. The releases also shed light on a genre which I’ve become enamoured with recently: Taiwanese wuxia. Not long ago a friend recommended Love and Sword, and soon after I purchased it 2nd hand. The picture immediately went into my Top 5 Wuxia of all time, and I was hungry for more. Fortunately the genre thrived in the late 70s and early 80s, with great offerings such as Jade Dagger Ninja and A Sword Named Revenge readily available. One that I picked up at the time, watched and quite liked, and did not pick up again until wanting to write this review, is The Face Behind the Mask. Made in ‘77, it provides a bridge between the old ways of wuxia choreography and the upcoming more flashy, stylised and fast-edited new ways, epitomised by Love and Sword.
The Face Behind the Mask opens with three martial disciples Hsiao Meng Fei (Yueh Hua, Come Drink with Me), Chi Mu Tan (Hsu Feng, Dragon Gate Inn) and Leng Yen Ching (Lo Lieh, King Boxer) eliminating feared fighters of the martial world, at the behest of their Master Chi Tien Wei (Hu Chi, Naval Commandos). They now rule under the name The First Family. Soon things go awry and it becomes apparent there is a spy in their midst who wishes to usurp Master Chi. Many fights later the masked villain must be revealed.
The film is directed by none other than Cheng Chi Hwa, who is most famous for directing the early Jackie Chan starrer Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, for my money the best po-faced Lo Wei era Chan movie. The Face Behind the Mask was only his third film as director, and you can see some of his talent for capturing fight action and a little dose of immersive atmosphere. Unfortunately the film suffers from the plights of many old schoolers, namely clunky camerawork, poor cutting and sound editing. Someone like Lee Tso Nam (my favourite independent director of all time) was working in Taiwan at the time and his films have a dearth of these problems, and deliver on all fronts. Where The Face Behind the Mask does deliver is in its casting and, to a certain extent, its swordplay.
The triumvirate of Hsu, Lo and Yueh is a super casting coup, and each were at the height of their acting and martial arts powers when the film was made. Tarantino names Lo one his favourite martial arts actors, and here his character goes through the ringer, with some top notch emoting and reactions. Hsu shone brightly in the master King Hu’s filmography, and here does her best with an underwritten part, proving her swordplay chops too. Yueh is his usual stoic self, radiating charisma when appearing on screen. The first half of the movie is a fight fest, with duels coming thick and fast. Choreographer Ho Wei Hsung ensures they are slickly staged, and are a world away from his work on From the Highway, with its close in angles and brutality. The fights are filmed wide and with long exchanges, and there’s some invention on show. They do suffer a little when compared with movies from a year or two later such as Love and Sword and John Woo’s classic Last Hurrah for Chivalry, as by that point intricacy, crispness and stylisation were amping up. The hand to hand combat is a little slow and lacks fluidity, a world away from stuff like The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious made in Taiwan a year earlier. There are moments here and there within the choreography that create awe, but nothing that blows you away.
The back cover of The Face Behind the Mask states that Jackie Chan appears as a masked assassin at some point, and in fact there are two masked characters who get into fights, meaning I’m not sure which one is Jackie. I would guess at a mid film fight, with the white robed and masked assassin pulling off some Chan-like acrobatics. At that point Chan was in the midst of making his Lo Wei films, and appeared in productions like The Face Behind the Mask and others in small parts or as a stuntman.
While the film doesn’t reach the heady heights of the best Taiwanese wuxia, it’s an enjoyable little flick that rewards a look due to the fine combination of cast, decent direction and a myriad of quite exciting action sequences. It’s problems lie in not being particularly memorable or standing out from the crowd, and an end fight that doesn’t improve significantly on what has gone before. Seek out something like Love and Sword if you want to see the pinnacle of the genre.
Martin Sandison’s Rating: 6/10
Trailer or clip not available, but Youtube has the entire movie. Wanna see if you can spot Jackie Chan?
