The kung-fu movie genre is often thought of as a ‘man’s game’, but there are several female stars who could give even their biggest male counterparts a run for their money. One of these was Angela Mao, who became a star in the early days of the kung-fu boom at the start of the 1970s.

Mao’s big break came in 1971, with the wuxia The Angry River. It’s an important film, being her first lead role, the first production from Golden Harvest and the directorial debut of Huang Feng. It also features an early action director credit for Sammo Hung, as well as a small acting role. Feng, Mao and Sammo proved to be successful collaborators here and the trio worked together on several films.

The most famous of these collaborations are probably Lady Whirlwind (a.k.a. Deep Thrust) and Hapkido. These landmark titles are being released together in a box set by Eureka Classics. I must admit, I hadn’t seen them before, so was keen to get hold of a copy and give my thoughts.

Lady Whirlwind

Director: Huang Feng
Screenplay: Yi-Chung Hua
Starring: Angela Mao, Yi Chang, Ying Bai, Kyung-Ah Oh, Feng Huang, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 88 min
Year: 1972

Lady Whirlwind opens with what looks like the murder of Ling Shi-hao (Chang Yi) at the hands of a group of gangsters, led by Tung Ku (Pai Ying).

We then jump forward a couple of years to find Miss Tien Li-Chun (Mao) causing trouble at a casino run by Tung and Madame Taio Ta-nian (Liu Ah-na), who seems to be the real boss of the gang. After beating up a bunch of their goons, Tien demands that Tung hands over Ling.

Believing the man to be dead, Tung and Taio are understandably surprised but also suspicious. Their suspicions turn out to be well-founded when the audience discovers Ling is alive and well, as Hsuang Hsuang (Oh Kyung- Ah) had rescued him that fateful day, nursed him back to health and kept him in hiding from his enemies.

Noticing Hsuang’s suspicious reaction during another altercation with Tung’s goons, Tien follows her home one day and finally meets Ling. We then discover why she was so doggedly pursuing the man. It turns out, in his villainous past, when he was a member of Tung’s gang, Ling had mistreated Tien’s sister, mentally bullying her into suicide. Tien is therefore here to get revenge.

Ling is now a changed man, aided by a mutual love of Hsuang, but this doesn’t stop Tien from wanting to kill him. However, Ling begs that he first be allowed to get his own vengeance on Tung and his gang before facing off against Tien.

I’m not sure I’d say Mao is the lead here, despite her billing. It’s somewhat of a small ensemble piece and Ling’s narrative gets much more attention than anyone else’s. Tien’s story doesn’t develop much over the course of the film. She steals the show whenever she appears though, in a badass, anti-hero role, so you can see why she became a star from the back of this. Reportedly, Bruce Lee was so impressed he pushed for her to appear in his latest film, Enter the Dragon.

Coming from the early era of the kung-fu movie, the action has a fair amount of wild arm swinging rather than the more intricate, carefully choreographed strikes that would follow in later years, but the fights are well orchestrated for the time and plentiful. Handled by Sammo Hung, they have a lot of energy, some acrobatics, fun use of props and feel pretty brutal due to the big, aggressive movements. You can clearly see a lot of the hits don’t connect though. Kung-fu movies were still new back then, so directors and crews hadn’t quite perfected the art of shooting action.

Though the action would improve in Mao, Sammo and Feng’s next film (more on that later), I actually thought some other aspects were stronger here. Whilst melodramatic in places, the story and character dynamics are a little more interesting in Lady Whirlwind. It looks more impressive too, with good use of movement, framing and locations (some in Korea).

So, Lady Whirlwind is, in places, a classier affair than Hapkido but with a few overly melodramatic moments and an underuse of Mao, particularly in the finale, it ends up feeling slightly less successful overall. Nonetheless, it remains a nicely shot martial arts drama with plenty of fights to keep fans happy.

Film:

Hapkido

Director: Huang Feng
Screenplay: Yan Ho
Starring: Angela Mao, Carter Wong, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Han Jae Ji, Ying Bai, Nancy Sit
Country: Hong Kong, South Korea
Running Time: 97 min
Year: 1972

Hapkido is set in 1934, a time when Japan occupied Korea. One day, three Chinese students (played by Mao, Sammo and Carter Wong) who are living in the country to study the Korean martial art of hapkido can’t help but stand up for a group of Koreans who are getting pushed around by some Japanese gentlemen. This action unfortunately has repercussions, with the students’ hapkido school getting smashed up, causing them to be banished.

The trio head back to China, where they set up a hapkido school. They visit other local martial arts dojos to pay their respects, only to find that the Japanese Black Bear school, led by the evil Toyota (Yamane Teruo), is lording it over everyone. The hapkido students (or rather teachers by this point) do their best to try and keep things civil but Toyota and Black Bear’s chief instructor (Pai Ying) make it impossible not to make a stand.

Anti-Japanese sentiment was still strong in China and Hong Kong at the time, with the Second Sino-Japanese War still in the memory of older audience members. As such, this story, which borrows much from Fist of Fury (though they were only released within 6 months of each other) whiffs of racism towards the Japanese, who never come off well in the film.

It’s interesting, however, that Hapkido is championing a Korean martial art, rather than a Chinese one. Sammo and Mao spent an intensive four months training in hapkido to a high level before production and the film makes good use of the style. In particular, we get to see some very impressive demonstrations when South Korean hapkido grandmaster Ji Han-Jae and his number one pupil Hwang In-shik show up as, unimaginitively, a hapkido master and his number one pupil.

Sammo was the action choreographer for the film though. This makes him the key player in the success of the film as it’s absolutely loaded with fight scenes. He gives himself some of the best, toughest sequences, to show off his skills in what, at the time, was his most substantial on-screen performance so far. The choreography isn’t quite as graceful as in Sammo’s later kung-fu films but there are still some acrobatic moves and it has a brutal, heavy-hitting quality that I appreciate. You can see an improvement over Lady Whirlwind, showing that Sammo was learning fast.

Mao is also a key driving force though, of course. She’s every bit as charismatic here as in Lady Whirlwind, even if her character is a little less badass.

What impressed me in both films was how, other than literally one or two insults, Mao is treated just like any other male martial artist throughout (which reportedly was the case on set too). It’s refreshing to not see her as a lesser fighter or have her journey a fight to prove that women can be worthy martial artists too. It’s just always accepted that she’s as good as, or in fact largely better than, the men around her.

Hapkido is also notable in being Carter Wong’s first substantial role. It shows, as although his fight scenes are impressive (he was previously a martial arts instructor, sometimes even for the police), his performance elsewhere lacks charisma. Mao and Sammo, on the other hand, have commanding presences, aided by their previous film experience and time studying and performing Peking opera.

Overall then, Hapkido is an old-school, no-nonsense martial arts movie that makes up for its bog-standard plot with a huge amount of top-notch action and a refreshingly forward thinking attitude towards women in the genre. Mao and Sammo prove their worth too, helping show why they’re two such respected stars of kung-fu movie history.

Film:

Angela Mao: Hapkido & Lady Whirlwind is out on 3rd October on Blu-Ray in the UK, released by Eureka as part of their Eureka Classics series. The picture quality on both titles is exceptional, with lovely rich colours and sharp details. I was worried that Hapkido looked a bit too clean in places, with a slightly plastic look but because the rest of it looks stunning I think it might have just been the thick makeup worn back then. We’re also treated to multiple audio options (see below for full details), keeping everyone happy, whether they’re a fan of dub or sub.

LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

– Limited Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling (First run of 2000 copies only)
– 1080p presentations of both films across two Blu-ray discs, from new 2K restorations
– Limited Edition Reversible Poster featuring original theatrical poster artwork (First run of 2000 copies only)
– Hapkido – Original mono Mandarin and English audio options, including two variations of the classic English dub
– Hapkido – DTS-HD MA 5.1 English dub (newer dub originally created for the film’s original DVD release)
– Lady Whirlwind – Original mono Mandarin and English audio options | Optional English Subtitles, newly translated for this release
– Hapkido – New feature length audio commentary with Asian film experts Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) & Michael Worth
– Hapkido – New feature length audio commentary with Frank Djeng & martial artist / actor Robert “Bobby” Samuels
Lady Whirlwind – New feature length audio commentary with Asian film experts Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) & Michael Worth
– Lady Whirlwind – New feature length audio commentary with Frank Djeng & martial artist / actor Robert “Bobby” Samuels
– Lady Whirlwind – New feature length audio commentary by film journalist and author Samm Deighan
– Brand new interview with Angela Mao, filmed in 2022
– Brand new interview with George King, Mao’s son
– Archival promotional film
– Archival interview with Angela Mao
– Archival interview with Carter Wong
– Archival interview with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao
– Hapkido – Alternate opening credits
– Selection of trailers and TV spots
– Stills Galleries
– Reversible sleeve featuring original Hong Kong poster artwork
– PLUS: A Limited-Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by James Oliver (First run of 2000 copies only)

Frank Djeng and Robert “Bobby” Samuels’ two commentaries are a pleasure to listen to, as always. The pair discuss the work of those involved in the films as well as some personal stories about them and memories of watching kung-fu movies in their youth.

Djeng also provides another track on each film with Michael Worth. These are equally as strong, though there’s some crossover between tracks as you’d imagine having the same host. Worth gives it a slightly different vibe though, not having the personal connection to the cast and crew that Samuel has but having a wide knowledge of martial arts and kung-fu movies.

Samm Deighan appears as new voice on one of the commentary tracks (well, new to Eureka’s usual lineup). She digs deep into the history of the film and Golden Harvest in general whilst also including a little more analysis than the usual Djeng and Leeder/Venema commentaries. I liked her track a lot and hope she crops up more often in the future.

I enjoyed the new Mao interviews a great deal too. She has a lot to say about her career back then and her experiences on the production. She’s incredibly humble about her fame and is a pleasure to listen to.

The archive Mao interview is good too, with the interviewers asking questions about her experiences as a whole, rather than focussing on Lady Whirlwind and Hapkido, which means there isn’t much crossover.

Interviewing Mao’s son seems an odd choice, given he wasn’t involved in her films (he wasn’t even born yet back then), but he gives a fascinating interview on numerous topics, starting with how his mother was surprised to discover she was famous abroad. He also discusses the recent kung-fu Blu-ray/UHD boom and what that means to former stars like his mum and the Asian-American community as a whole. He then goes on to talk about the family’s restaurant business for the majority of the interview. This feels a little like publicity as it’s not relevant to the film itself but I still enjoyed hearing their story. His dog keeps making appearances too, which is amusing.

The archive interviews with Sammo, Yuen Biao and Wong are also worth a look, though the former are shorter than the Mao ones and the audio quality is poor on Wong’s piece. Wong had a long and impressive career following Hapkido though, so it’s interesting to hear about it.

I also enjoyed the archival promotional film that shows Sammo and Mao getting their qualifications for their hapkido training, as well as demonstrating the martial art alongside their fellow students.

The booklet is excellent as always, providing a pair of interesting essays on the films as well as plenty of archive stills and publicity material.

So, it’s a well-compiled package for a pair of kung-fu classics. It gets a very high recommendation from me. I’m pleased to see another female kung-fu megastar is getting some Eureka love soon too, with a few Michelle Yeoh titles teased recently on their social media feeds.

Disc/Package:

Angela Mao - Lady Whirlwind & Hapkido - Eureka
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Editor of films and videos as well as of this site. On top of his passion for film, he also has a great love for music and his family.

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