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The Lady Assassin
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (23rd March 2025). |
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The Film
 The emperor (Disciples of the 36th Chamber's Ching Miao) is dying and has administered a test to twenty princes in the line of succession, gifting each one twenty rats to see how they will "govern" their subjects. All but one prince had passed the gifted rat onto their servants to raise, making the young fourteenth prince (Holy Flame of the Martial World's Max Mok) - whose rat colony has grown exponentially – as the choice he names in the royal decree. The fourth prince (Fist of Fury's Lau Wing), however, learns of this and sends his assassins to kill his younger brother but the fourteenth prince's bodyguard Tsang Jing (Duel to the Death's Norman Tsui) proves too formidable and impervious to attempts at bribery. By a stroke of luck, Nin Geng Yiu (Bloody Parrot's Jason Pai Piao), son of the military governor and the only person who has ever equaled the fourth prince in hand-to-hand combat, obligates himself to faithful service to the prince by means of an offense that the latter pardons in exchange for obedience. The palace walls have ears and Tsang Jing's female spies Jade (The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter's Yeung Ching-Ching) and Pearl (Usurpers of Emperor's Power's Daisy Cheung) have already apprised him about the fourth prince's new bodyguard and his ambitions to the throne; but, as reckless as Nin Geng Yiu has been reputed, he also turns out to be quite cunning, plotting with the fourth prince to trick Han revolutionary writer Lui Liu Liang (The Mighty Peking Man's Ku Feng) and his anti-Ching collaborators into believing he supports the abolishing of harsh laws against the Han if he were to become emperor. Although Lui's daughter (Magic Crystal's Wong Mei-Mei) and swordswoman niece Si Niang (Little Dragon Maiden's Leanne Lau) are distrustful of the prince's motives, they are all take in by the prince's seeming pious sincerity and willingness to accept death if he goes back on his promises. With the help of Han heroes Pak (Demon of the Lute's Yuen Tak) and Bai (Five Deadly Venoms' Sun Chien), Si Niang steals into the palace and retrieves the royal decree and discover that it has named the fourteenth prince as successor. The prince and Nin Geng Yiu manipulate Lui Liu Liang into believing he has come up with the idea of altering the decree to name the fourth prince, and they blackmail the emperor's chief advisor Lord Loong Foh Do (My Young Auntie's Johnny Wang) into going along with the deceit. When the emperor dies and the fourth prince ascends to the throne, he is advised that he cannot keep his promise to abolish the rules against the Han without risking a revolt among the other princes which would likely be lead by the fourteenth prince so he continually puts off Lui Liu Liang while attempting to get rid of his brother, not realizing that Tsang Jing has already decided that he is going to assassinate him. As the new emperor's multiple betrayals come back to bit him, he A relatively late Shaw Brothers wuxia film, The Lady Assassin does not look like some of the more rushed and cheaper examples which were filling in the Shaw schedule around increasingly fantastical, supernatural, horrific, gory, and sexually-explicit output of the early eighties; indeed, this directorial effort from actor/director Tony Lou Chun-Ku – who also plays the film's hired ninja assassin in the film's latter half and would follow this film up with Bastard Swordsman and its sequel both featuring Tsui – is an epic, hellishly beautiful prestige film with gorgeous sets, costumes, photography, and exhilaratingly-staged, -filmed, and -edited scenes of swordplay and martial arts. There is also a score that does not seem like a bunch of library tracks or unauthorized liftings from other films that actually supports the nuances of the scenes themselves. The film is not without faults as it barrels along through the first half-hour of setup with little time for the viewer to soak in detail, taking the royal intrigues as a given along with the Han vs Manchu backstory – although perhaps this film was never intended for export outside of Asian territories – and, despite its title, there really is no titular "lady assassin" nor Si Niang realizing she has been helping the wrong person as much a dramatic character arc as it seems it was intended in contrast to Tsang Jing's stoic, unyielding forthrightness. While her introduction teased that she might be an assassin targeting Tsang Jing, she only really becomes one at the end for revenge and because she is pretty much the only one left to do anything. Although it is odd to see Shaw villain regular Ku Fang as a dupe, Lau Wing makes for a good villain, ruthless but possessing a hint of uncertainty about the consequences of his actions. The more interesting dynamic lies among their social inferiors. Nin Geng Yiu is the real mover and shaker behind the plot of the prince's ascension to the throne and seems to have no illusions about the nature of his relationship with the prince while Tsang Jing reluctantly admits to Jade and Pearl that the fourth prince is a weak man and feels indebted to the prince solely because he has treated him as a supposed equal; indeed, while Tsang Jing makes the decision independently of the fourteenth prince to assassinate the emperor, the fourteenth prince expresses worry outwardly to Jade and Pearl when they tell him but may be just as manipulative as his brother even if he is not overtly evil. If The Lady Assassin is not dramatically-satisfying, it is entertaining enough in terms of action and a nice discovery in the hit-or-miss back catalogue of the voluminous Shaw Brothers that did not make its way to the West before authorized or bootlegged. 
Video
Unreleased officially in English-speaking territories, The Lady Assassin became more accessible when Celestial Pictures remastered the film and licensed it to Hong Kong's Intercontinental Video whose DVD was a PAL-to-NTSC conversion and featured 5.1 upmixes of the Mandarin and Cantonese dubs but it did include optional English subtitles. The film made its Blu-ray debut in France in 2022 in a double-disc set with Secret Service of the Imperial Court, but it was not English-friendly and was encoded at 1080i50. We have no information about the master other than the stated "High Definition Blu-ray Presentation (1080p) In 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio" but 88 Films' Region A/B dual-territory U.S./U.K. 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray is quite the stunner. It is free of any noticeable archival damage and boasts richly saturated colors and great detail in the film's close-ups (some distortion in wide angle shots and the bokeh in close-ups is part of the aged anamorphic lenses Shaw used for their Shawscope branding). Smoke and lens flare is plentiful but does not play havoc with the encode, and one bit shot that looked damaged in the earlier unauthorized source I saw the film in is sharp enough here to reveal that what looked like gouges in the film was actually the flash of the fourth prince's Dragon Sword as he flips it over in front of his face and sheaths it. 
Audio
The sole audio option is an uncompressed Cantonese LPCM 2.0 mono track which sports clean post-dubbed voices, foley effects with an emphasis on the swordplay and arterial spurts. The music seems like actual underscore or the editing may have been conceived with certain library tracks in mind. Optional English subtitles are free of obvious errors. 
Extras
Besides the video trailer (1:17) created during the DVD-era remasters and a stills gallery (2:58), the only other extra is "From Child Actor to Fight Coordinator" (23:50), an interview with Poon Kin-Kwan (From Beijing with Love) who worked on the film as one of the action directors but focuses on his career despite constant use of clips from the film. He recalls starting out at Shaw Brothers at nine years old as a child actor on films like One Armed Swordsman and Come Drink with Me, learning martial arts on the sets, becoming a stuntman and then deciding to move into choreography as he grew fascinated with seeing how fight scenes were staged and cut together in the editing room. He also notes that there are no longer any stunt schools in Hong Kong and that many of the stunt performers are either brought in from Mainland China or productions are moved there for the performer and to take advantage of the landscapes. 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original art while the first pressing also includes a slipcover with art by Sam Green and a foldout double-sides poster. 
Overall
If The Lady Assassin is not dramatically-satisfying, it is entertaining enough in terms of action and a nice discovery in the hit-or-miss back catalogue of the voluminous Shaw Brothers that did not make its way to the West before authorized or bootlegged.
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