|
From the onset, a wild stream of images (red and black filters for the sky, withered tree on wasteland, exploding castle) and a droll travesty of impenetrable mythos ("In the 36-year period before the New Era, two devastating wars took place in the Martial World..."). The itinerant scribe (Lau Siu Ming) among rival clans, forgeries of his work are offered to the paper mill manager last seen dangling above ink and blood. The title is not a poetic metaphor, gravediggers at work feel the hundreds of tiny insects lurking on branches like Hitchcock's fowl, "it seems we're being watched." (The butterfly attacks are filmed with frenzied flickers à la Brakhage, an insert reveals the gory prick on the pale hand under one of the fluttering critters.) The mystery points to a crumbling fortress with an underground labyrinth, its owner (Chang Kuo-Chu), the clan leader (Shu-Tong Wong) and acrobatic Green Shadow (Michelle Yim) are part of the endangered ensemble. "The world one day will turn upside-down." Tsui Hark cracks the chrysalis, as it were, just the mélange of wuxia combat and Gothic whodunit and vengeful-Nature horror for a freewheeling novice. Nets cover the stronghold on the outside, on the inside there's a subterranean chamber for the collection of lethal specimens, the mute servant knows the way. Combustible mixtures ("Gunpowder in bamboo arrows") to match manic camera angles, plus an assassin in black armor whittling down the cast with a spiked glove. Dalían distortions, exploding birds, the Tsui kineticism already in spades. "It's easy for scholars to talk," as filmmaker might posit to critic. "But there's a great difference between writing and fighting." With Eddy Ko, Chi-Chi Chen, Long Tien Cheung, Danny Chow, and Hsiao-Ling Hsu.
--- Fernando F. Croce |