★★★
“Flower power”
Another solid Pearl Chang movie – despite being mis-labelled as Wolf Devil Woman 3, it is in now way related to that super weird entry. This is closer to The Invincible Swordswoman, though is not without its strange aspects. Pearl plays May, who gets an annoyingly cryptic mission from her dying mother – I mean, if I was about to shuffle off, my last words would be considerably less vague than, and I quote, “I’ve put a very important thing in a box… You will find out about a great, great secret. From that, you will see the task that you have to perform.” She then drags said sick parent round the countryside for a bit, not even noticing for a while that she’s now pulling a corpse [like I said: not without its strange aspects].
She befriends a roaming scholar (Tsung), who has a secret identity as a vigilante, and after helping fend off a home invasion, is adopted by his family. The whole “mission given by her dying mother” thing appears largely forgotten by May at this point. Eventually – and it could be weeks, months or years, since time-frames are not this movie’s strong suit – she remembers about it, and heads out on the road again. Suddenly stricken with guilt, she’s about to fling herself into a gorge when she’s stopped by the Happy Fairy (Gua), so named because her grin achieves Joker-like levels of permanence.
She increases May’s stock of skills, adding to those picked up from the vigilante scholar, though her training methods involve literally spit-roasting May, as well as turning her into a living snow-woman [again: strange aspects]. It all makes sense after the Fairy tells her a story about a bloody massacre from which there was only one survivor. May inexplicably fails to grasp the deeply-personal connection this anecdote has, well after the audience has figured it out. But this sets in motion the final act, where she turns into the Miraculous Flower – yeah, I was wondering when that was going to become relevant, too. She sets about obtaining her revenge, leaving a white blossom on the scene as her calling-card. Though it’s not as straightforward as that (let’s face facts: it never is), with the secateurs of May’s justice ending up cutting perilously close to her life before becoming the vengeful flora.
Not much is known about the director of this, but he seems to have had a serious thing for heights. The movie certainly makes the most out of Taiwan’s mountainous scenery: as well as the gorge mentioned above, we get battles on the sides of mountains and a particularly memorable one on a waterfall. The story isn’t more than a series of cliches, and definitely tries to stuff too much into its 86 minutes, while the lifting of the theme from The Twilight Zone is particularly blatant. Yet, I’d rather have a movie with too much imagination, rather than not enough: and you’d certainly be hard pushed to claim this fell into the latter category. I was more than adequately entertained.
Dir: Fong Ho
Star: Pearl Ling Chang, Tsung Hua, Gua Ah Leh, Wang Hsieh
a.k.a. Phoenix the Ninja