The world is a better place because of films like Taiwan's Thrilling Bloody Sword and better still because people like Colin Geddes - who owns and has preserved the print screened here in Sitges - and Mondo Macabro's Pete Tombs and Andy Starke - who presented it to audiences - are here to point the way to find them. A ludicrously unauthorized remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Thrilling Bloody Sword has everything you could possibly want in a cult film: technicolored painted backdrops, evil magicians, a beautiful girl hatched from an egg, palace intrigue, a talking chicken, one-eyed demons, fire breathing nine headed serpents, dwarfs that are nothing but adult men walking on their knees and an invulnerable villain that can be killed only by stabbing him up the bum. I can't say conclusively that director Cheung San-Yee was consuming large amounts of acid while making this film but it certainly seems that way.
Okay, basic story: Queen gives birth to egg, King freaks out and leaves egg in wild to die. Queen dies - leaving King without an heir - and egg discovered by seven former generals from a neighboring kingdom who have been transformed into dwarves by a pair of evil magicians. Egg hatches into beautiful girl who dwarves raise. Evil magicians come to kingdom and gain King's trust by fighting off a series of cheap rubber demons that they themselves secretly sent to attack. Prince on way to King's birthday meets beautiful girl on way to King's birthday party and they make gooey eyes at each other. Prince fights demon. Magicians turn him into a fun-fur suited bear. Girl saves prince with help of bunny/fairy but is kidnapped by magicians who know who she is and brainwashed into agreeing to marry one of them. Prince goes on quest for magical thunder-sword, dons wildly homoerotic mystical suit, stabs invulnerable man up bum, rescues third magician - who appears to have a bum growing out of the top of his head - from inside a magical box and defeats bad magicians just before they assume control of the kingdom. The end. Yay!
Yes, Thrilling Bloody Sword is every bit as cheap and cheesy as you would expect a low-budget kid's fantasy film from Taiwan in 1981 to be and it is gloriously so. Unintentionally camp and loaded with every possible type of lo-fi special effect imaginable - at one point the hero is attacked by a trio of frog demons whose costume basically consists of swimming flippers worn on both hands and feet - the film maintains an incredibly high level of energy from start to finish with the promise that something truly and gloriously ludicrous will appear on the screen at least once every two or three minutes. It's a kitchen-sink sort of movie, with absolutely everything possible thrown into the mix - one of the dwarf-generals is inexplicably dressed as Robin Hood, at one point the hero fights a pair of severed legs, etc etc - with no gag too obvious and no effect to cheap to attempt. Very, very silly and very, very fun the only possible response is to thank those involved in bringing it to screen in Sitges for saving it from total obscurity.
Sounds like my kind of film (was watching Super Inframan again last night)! Here's hoping it sees a DVD release at some point.
Please God, let there be a DVD release!!!
I remember watching something like this when I was young back in the early 80's.. Me and my folks would go up to Chinatown here in Houston, and would go shopping for groceries and watch asian movies at the cineplexes...
Yup, my kind of film.