To celebrate my 36th review, I was going to review Crazy Shaolin Disciples, but there’s only so many ways that I can say “The fights are good, but the story sucks.” So instead, I’m going to be reviewing a different Shaw Brothers movie called Long Road to Gallantry. I usually love swordplay wuxia fantasy films like Bastard Swordsman because of their great stories, the wire-fu action, and the bizarre yet beautiful imagery. This movie was directed by Lung I-Sheng (aka Tang Tak-Cheung, director of Demon of the Lute) and has a pretty good cast: Kenny Ho (Project A 2, The Red Wolf), Kara Hui, and Rosamund Kwan (in one of her earliest roles).
Long Road to Gallantry is about Du Mengfei (Kenny Ho), who is instructed by his master to go out into the world and fight for justice. During his travels, he fights to save two women named Mu Wan Er (Rosamund Kwan) and Li San Nan (Kara Hui). A love triangle is eventually formed, but it turns out that Mu Wan Er is actually the daughter of an evil overlord, Leng Tian Lei (Lung Tien-Hsiang). Though Du Mengfei and Li San Nan know that she isn’t a bad person, they try to protect her from those who oppose her. Things take a turn for the worse when Li San Nan’s father also wants Mu Wan Er killed and Li has to decide if she should obey her father or not.
Long Road to Gallantry is about Du Mengfei (Kenny Ho), who is instructed by his master to go out into the world and fight for justice. During his travels, he fights to save two women named Mu Wan Er (Rosamund Kwan) and Li San Nan (Kara Hui). A love triangle is eventually formed, but it turns out that Mu Wan Er is actually the daughter of an evil overlord, Leng Tian Lei (Lung Tien-Hsiang). Though Du Mengfei and Li San Nan know that she isn’t a bad person, they try to protect her from those who oppose her. Things take a turn for the worse when Li San Nan’s father also wants Mu Wan Er killed and Li has to decide if she should obey her father or not.
Let’s start off with the positives. I always have to reward a movie for its fight scenes. Not only is performing the choreography difficult, but it’s probably harder to achieve with the wires. And the wire-fu in this movie is very good. There’s great choreography and some creative fantasy wire-fu. The fights are also very frequent in this movie, which is a plus. Also, I really liked the plot. I love to see moral ambiguity in movies. You don’t know if a character is doing the right thing or not. And if not, you can understand why they’re doing it. This usually makes the audience more engrossed in what will happen next.
Even though Long Road to Gallantry has a great cast, a good story, fun action, and some interesting moral ambiguity, I still don’t really care for this movie. This is a movie that I should enjoy, but I do have some issues with it. It is an underrated Shaw Brothers gem in the making, but the execution is pretty poor. One of my main problems are the characters. The characters are unfortunately underdeveloped and they don’t go well with the convoluted story. The problems that they have to go through are interesting, but the characters themselves aren’t.
Even though Long Road to Gallantry has a great cast, a good story, fun action, and some interesting moral ambiguity, I still don’t really care for this movie. This is a movie that I should enjoy, but I do have some issues with it. It is an underrated Shaw Brothers gem in the making, but the execution is pretty poor. One of my main problems are the characters. The characters are unfortunately underdeveloped and they don’t go well with the convoluted story. The problems that they have to go through are interesting, but the characters themselves aren’t.
It’s hard to really care about these characters mainly because we barely know about their personalities. And when all they do is fight or watch other people fight, we don’t really learn anything about them. And if we don’t care about the characters, the fights aren’t as fun or interesting. Also, I thought the ending of this movie was just kinda terrible. Everything builds up to a tragic ending for our main characters, but again, it didn’t make me feel too bad for them. It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
The love triangle in this movie is also handled poorly mainly because Kara Hui’s character is not very likable. She’s deceptive and mean, and I didn’t really feel any sympathy for the character. I can’t really talk about the love triangle in depth because that work lead to a whole bunch of spoilers. In short, it just doesn’t work. The characters that you want to get together don’t get together and some of them don’t really have any chemistry. The romance that does form at the end is so forced that it doesn't seem charming or sweet. It just bugs me that the characters actually did have chemistry didn't get to have a romance by the end.
The love triangle in this movie is also handled poorly mainly because Kara Hui’s character is not very likable. She’s deceptive and mean, and I didn’t really feel any sympathy for the character. I can’t really talk about the love triangle in depth because that work lead to a whole bunch of spoilers. In short, it just doesn’t work. The characters that you want to get together don’t get together and some of them don’t really have any chemistry. The romance that does form at the end is so forced that it doesn't seem charming or sweet. It just bugs me that the characters actually did have chemistry didn't get to have a romance by the end.
Besides an interesting idea, Long Road to Gallantry is clumsily executed with poor characters and sometimes poor pacing. This movie has some really strong moments, particularly during the fight scenes, but the bland characters really bring this movie down and the decisions they make just don't make any sense sometimes. Even the story can get a bit convoluted. It’s not a really bad movie though, but saying it’s decent is actually kinda generous. I know that some people really love this movie, but I just couldn’t get into it. Go watch Bastard Swordsman again.
Images from Listal, Douban, and HK Cinemagic
Images from Listal, Douban, and HK Cinemagic