User reviews

Just watched it again last night after so many years. Lucky I found the DVD ( a Chinese product I guess ) somewhere here in Jakarta last week.

The English titles, in some versions are somewhat misleading. A reviewer mentions this as The Demon Fighter, another calls it Lone Ninja Warrior. This movie was in theater in Indonesia ( which is populated with Chinese descents ) back in 1983! The title was translated as Once Life for Love! What a good effort.

I guess the most appropriate English title is Night Orchid as this represents the movie better in some ways. Night Orchid is a notorious nick name attributed for a mysterious character who kills women, leaving an orchid as a signature after the murder. The Night Orchid is played by the will be well-known Hong Kong actress Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia.

Another reviewer mentions this as Chu Yen Ping's movie, which might not be correct as the director here is Chang Peng Yi, who once directed a Shaw Brother movie entitled Clans Feud that stars Ti Lung, Lily Li, and Lo Meng. No wonder Eddy Ko, Don Wang Tao and Fung Hak On appears in the movie as Chang is likely have connection with some Hong Kong important figures.

The movie is indeed another adaptation of Gu Long Wuxia novels and Adem Cheng Siu Chiu or Cheng Hsao Chiu here plays Chu Liu Hsiang, a must be familiar character for Wuxia fans since Chu Liu Hsiang's adventures have been brought to screen alive by Shaw director Chu Yuan with such classics as Clans of Intrigue, Legends of the Bat, and Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman.

To be honest, I sought after this movie not hoping for quality but for merely bring my memory back!. Shaw Brothers new release in DVD has brought my childhood back so I would like to find another. Night orchid is a rare film and it was a surprised when I found it

Will not talk about story line here as Gu Long's novel are usually convoluted. When it is being compressed into 1 hour and 15 minutes length, you know the outcome. We have nice outdoor fighting at the beginning of the film in the bamboo forest and things look much better with the natural setting. Many weird characters and costumes, interesting yet non-sense fighting, plus few erotic scenes make it perfect for independent B-movie like experience. It is interesting though to see the young Brigitte Lin and Adam Cheng.

It is a movie for mere entertainment. Do not compare it with Chang's Clan Feuds or other serious treats from cinema master such as King Hu. Looks like Chang attempted to follow the success of Zu Warriors with the same lead actors as has been mentioned by another reviewer, but with seemingly less budget and creativity, the result is average.

THE DEMON FIGHTER (1984) appears to be a Taiwanese attempt to cash in on the success of ZU WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983). It features that movie's stars, Adam Cheng and Brigitte Lin, and assorted low-tech versions of its wire effects, although with none of the earlier movie's imagination and excitement.

There are a lot of pretty images, several lovely women in exotic costumes, and some nice sets, but it's hard to tell what relationship any scene has to any other. For a long time, there's very little dialogue and many of the scenes play out as if there was supposed to be narration explaining it all but the soundtrack is, instead, strangely silent. Eventually, some kind of plot emerges as Adam Cheng rescues Brigitte Lin and takes her along with him and his drunkard partner on some sort of undefined mission. They then have to contend with ninja-type acrobatic assassins and a mysterious black-clad figure called the Orchid who kills assorted women, including a very sensual Indian woman who resides in a lavishly appointed cave.

Lots of non-Chinese Asian cultures are represented, although one has to guess at what they are, since there's such a hodgepodge of costumes and motifs. There's even an Egyptian temple at one point. Kung fu star Wong Tao (HOT, COOL AND VICIOUS) turns up as an Egyptian. Popular kung fu villains Eddy Ko, Lung Fei and Fung Hak On are on hand also, but have little to do. The fight scenes are few, short and gimmicky, with an over-reliance on wires and effects. The film is so inept that it becomes fascinating and could probably benefit from 'Mystery Science Theater 3000'-type commentary. A low-cost, poor-quality, cut version of this film has been released under the title FASTER BLADES, POISONOUS DARTS.

ADDENDUM (Nov. 22, 2007): There seems to be some confusion on this page. There are reviews here for two completely different films, DEMON FIGHTER and LONE NINJA WARRIOR. My review is of THE DEMON FIGHTER and the cast listed here by IMDb is indeed the cast of THE DEMON FIGHTER. I've also seen LONE NINJA WARRIOR, which does not feature the same cast, although the two films may indeed have the same director. I'm hoping IMDb will correct the mistake and give LONE NINJA WARRIOR its own page.

I'm guessing that MASTER OF THE FLYING DAGGERS was made as a response to Tsui Hark's ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, a film whose success kick-started a mini-wave of similarly fantasy-themed wuxia epics during the era. Even the Shaw Brothers studio tried their hand at some of these outlandish stories, but MASTER OF THE FLYING DAGGERS is an undistinguished and entirely cheap Taiwanese version of that kind of tale.

The story sees Adam Cheng as the loyal hero and Brigitte Lin as the subject of his affections. The storyline sees them battling some weird ninja assassins who are dressed in these natty glitter costumes which are pretty but hardly imposing. Sadly, the plot makes zero sense whatsoever, and seems merely to consist of a jumble of scenes muddled together.

A lot of the scenes are set in some kind of exotic cave where exotic women lounge around in some semi-erotic moments. Bizarrely, there's an Egyptian temple in the film too, with low rent martial arts star Don Wong playing the world's most unlikely Egyptian. Most of MASTER OF THE FLYING DAGGERS consists of cheesy effects scenes and a whole slew of wire work, and none of it is very convincing, so my recommendation is to skip this particular title.

Chiu Yin Peng - the real director of this film - is one of the most eccentric directors in world cinema; usually off the wall independents like him disappear after 3 or 4 films, but Chiu made friends along the way (especially famed choreographer and director Ching Sui Tung, who seems to have gotten his start working with Chiu). Consequently, he has managed to build a real career out of insulting audience sensibilities while frequently giving them exactly what they want.

I admit that, in general, I don't care for Chiu Yin Peng's sense of humor (see the early "Fantasy Mission Force" and the later "Shaolin Popeye" for goofs that really bite the big one). But when faced with the obvious, I must pay respect where it's due. This film is one beginning-to-end hoot of a send-up of Chinese sword-fight films, enacted by a cast completely in on the joke and committed to pulling it off with real aplomb.

In the late '70s, early '80s, Chiu (who had previously worked with very small budgets) began to get real resources behind him, and developed a series of films, of which this film is one, that used the same characters; the gimmick was that the films were not sequential, and the characters actually changed positions from film to film - a character would die in one, reappear in the next; in one film Character X would play the villain, and Y would be the hero; in the next Character X would be the hero, Y the villain. The sustaining elements to these films are thematic and incidental. The plots always have to do with characters who are doomed to violent lives, and who spend most of the film trying to figure out why (the films are essentially Buddhist morality plays). The films use specialist sword-fighting techniques, and generally involve black magic and vampirism. There are also moments of broad low-brow humor, which are actually used to mask the real sophistication of these films, which is that they are intentional parodies of the genre to which they pretend to belong. They do all share one really bad weakness, which is that their plots are so convoluted as to be virtually incomprehensible.

The film released as Lone Ninja Warrior (among other titles) is by far the best of lot, the easiest to follow and the most purely entertaining. That may be due to Tien Peng, the film's star and rumored to have at least co-directed it. But in any event, any potential audience for this film has to accept one all important point - this is a campy satire of sword-fight films from China, that includes some excellent (wire-works) sword play for the sake of credibility.

This means that the exaggerated, grotesque characters, the compressed dialog delivered as a series of seeming (but actually non-sequitor) truisms, the absurd situations the characters wonder through, are all quite intentional. Chiu certainly knows that he has a Gothic hunch-back with buck-teeth stalking around; and it's beyond reason to suspect that when the hero scares the big guy wearing a diaper (and yes, that is exactly what he's wearing)and the big guy wets himself in fear, and the hero says "Big sissy - you're no good" - are we really supposed to believe that this is just all accident or stupidity? One may not like campy satire like this, but let's not fool ourselves that isn't campy satire.

At one point in the English-dub version of the film, a character muses "to all the girls I am Clark Kent." - that's right, Superman's alter-ego. I checked out a Chinese video release of the film, and guess what he's really saying - "to all the girls, I am Clark Kent" - yep, Superman's alter-ego - in Ming dynasty China? Since Clark Kent is well-known fictional character, since the name "Clark Kent" cannot be mistaken for anything Chinese, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to believe that Chiu - who wrote the script - probably knew he was using an anachronism for satiric effect.

Westerners seem unable to recognize the Chinese capacity for Modernist sophistication. Is the martial arts tradition so foreign to us that we can't recognize that it has neither less nor more claim on our credibility than the excellent marksmanship cowboys exhibit in Hollywood films about the "old West" - this despite the fact that the pistols actual cowboys used in the 19th century were notoriously inaccurate and prone to misfire? It's true that throughout the 1970s, Chinese directors were effectively stymied by the demands from their producers for "same-old same-old" formula 'fu films; but that doesn't mean that these formulae were imprinted on their genes.

In fact the sharpness of this particular satire is evidence enough that by the end of the '70s, Chinese filmmakers were preparing to overthrow their producers and take command of the medium. Within a few short years of the making of the present film, Sammo Hung produced Enter the Fat Dragon, Chan produced Police Story, Tsui Hark produced Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain, followed swiftly by break-through films by John Woo, Ringo Lam, Corey Yuen, Ching Sui Tung - a whole generation which has since been dubbed "Hong King's New Wave".

This film is not quite part of that - but if it weren't for this film, and others like it, the "New Wave" might never have happened.

This is truly an inspirational film for those who want to know what makes a good kung fu film. Nonsensical plot, bad dubbing, hilarious villains, sound effects which are so overused in every other kung fu film you should be able to mimic them perfectly by now.

As the other review captures the plot well I will simply add my own personal views on this film.

As someone who collects kung fu films, i disagree with the notion the film is from 1981. It must have been made far earlier than that. The actors used, the stilted choreography and even those doing the dubbing are from the early 70's. It's funny how you can age a film by knowing who was doing the dubbing at various points in the history of kung fu films!! As a sad note, when i was younger my friends an I took 'kung fu names' to use when we were out together. Mine was Snowywhite, and to this day friends will see me and shout 'evening Snowy' across a crowded bar. Still puts a smile on my face, even after nearly 16 years!