The Wandering Swordsman

Movie opens with horseback riders, titles, and weeds. David Chiang spies on two guys planning to rob an escort company. At the teahouse he talks to the waiter and pushes the thieves' buttons by talking openly about a good day for a robbery. He easily takes the loot from them and gives the gold to a mob of refugees then flies away like a God on Earth. Poor planning though as now he has to sell his swords to Chan Sing to pay for a meal. In the woods he saves Lily Li from a killer. He borrows her horse to catch up to the man who bought his two swords. Meanwhile, Lily li returns to her security bureau. The movie starts out lightweight. David Chiang is just smiling like movie star. A more fitting title would be "The Smiling Swordsman". The wire work is just showing off some smooth flight action. There's just one sword fight in the first thirty minutes. This is all just to set up the viewer for a heavyweight ending. This is Bolo Yeung Sze's first movie. He is a legitimate martial artist first and actor second. Maybe actor third is more accurate as he was certainly cast for his body builder physique in most of his movies. Overall I consider this a a great martial arts movie from the golden age of martial arts movies. It was an excellent start giving David Chiang an over the top heroic figure to kick off his career at Shaw Brothers.

One of the many movies from the Shaw Brothers focuses on a swordsman who becomes a sort of Robin Hood character. Like most martial arts movies, "You xia er" ("The Wandering Swordsman" in English) is an excuse to show off all sorts of moves and stunts, and boy do they! If you can picture one, chances are that they've got it here. Apparently, the movie's genre is called wuxia, meaning martial heroes. No shortage of heroics here. A lot of the stuff here looks as if it may have inspired "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Good times all around.

In addition to main cast members David Chiang and Lily Li, the movie features an early appearance of Bolo Yeung, more recognizable to US audiences as Bolo in "Enter the Dragon".