The Escape

On the wake of the 70's Kung-Fu craze, Taiwanese Opera-school graduated Chia Ling/Judy Lee (THE AVENGER) played almost 60 movies in few years. She was scouted by superstar Peter Yang Kwun. In THE ESCAPE she plays a sort of Mata Hari: a geisha-disguised Japanese spy who falls in love with the Chinese enemy during the Sino-Japanese war, and pay with her life for it. Co-directed by Peter Yang Kwun himself, his wife Florence Yu and Wu Min Hsiung (TOUGH GUY) and also produced by Peter and Florence for their HK Fong Ming Mo.Pic., this was a slightly better-budgeted (and overlong) movie than usual for the genre, and you can appreciate Chia Ling's sex-appeal (she has some love-scenes) as well as her Kung-Fu. The ubiquitous Ou Li Bao plays an henchman, the terrific Ko Fei is Chia Ling's servant. The love-affair is melodramatic and predictable. I rate this a mere 6 just for Chia Ling's attempt at a more complex acting. But you can find worse Kung-Fu films than this.

Peter Yang Kwan stars as an army general at the time of the Chinese revolution. The story is hard to follow and doesn't quite make sense. He is being guarded by the rest of the army for fear he will go to Shanghai as a revolutionary. Yet when the revolutionaries intervene to allow him to escape he doesn't. He even turns in another revolutionary. Chia Ling is a Chinese opera star. The army hires her to watch him but she gets romantically involved. Finally she helps him escape. Overall the action is sparse and certainly not her best. I can only recommend this movie to Chia Ling completists (who else would watch it or even know about it nowadays?) and rate it below average.