Crippled Avengers

viewed December 11, 2000 on video  Full Details

Seeking some guidance with a film project I am trying to develop for next year, I dropped into the final lecture of the term given by James Schamus, professor of film studies at Columbia (and longtime producer/scriptwriter for Ang Lee, most recently on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. His class -- Hong Kong Cinema -- was closing with a screening of Crippled Avengers, directed by the legendary Chang Cheh (if John Woo is the Sam Peckinpah of Hong Kong action movies, Chang Cheh could well be John Ford). I sat in and was quickly absorbed by this film, which has as much mythos and ethos as a classic Hollywood Western. Three civilians are brutally crippled (made blind, deaf and lame, respectively) by a vengeful warlord who himself has fallen victim to violence (his wife brutally hacked to death, his son's arms cut off). The three men are taken into the care of a kung fu monk who facilitates their rehab, and makes kung fu heroes out of them. A key element to their kung fu: relying on each others' strengths to compensate for their individual handicaps. A frequently used image of this unity is that of the deaf and the blind men clasping hands tightly -- which easily be construed as homosexual, but is not necessarily true. Manliness and machismo does take the front seat, though -- there are frequent sparring matches and staredowns. A typically laughable dubbing job adds to the films campy charisma -- especially the final line of dialogue, spoken by the vanquished villain.

After the screening I spoke with Mr. Schamus -- who was looking very grizzled having survived his latest film's opening weekend in New York. Holding a huge can of Elephant Brew, he didn't look too much the worse for wear and gave me a couple of good leads for casting my project. It is astounding that a man can maintain a lifestyle mixing writing scripts, producing films and teaching graduate level courses. Sort of how I'd like to end up twenty or thirty years from now...

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