User Reviews

During their heyday, the Venoms played in three wuxia films: Legend of the Fox, The Sword Stained with Royal Blood and Ode to Gallantry. I got the chance to see the first two in the movie theater, and The Sword Stained with Royal Blood is my favorite of the three!

Kwo Chui plays an orphan raised on the mountains by a revered swordsman and his mute servant. Fate brings him to discover a hidden treasure chest of the Golden Snake swordsman (Lung Thien Siang), whose skeleton is also found inside the cave with the chest, containing a snake- shaped sword and its training book. Having trained himself to become a swordsman, he travels to a nearby town to solve the mystery of the Golden Snake's death. Upon reaching town, Kwo gradually gets entangled in the mystery and must confront the Golden Snake's archenemy (Wang Li) and his clan members.

The story has its twists common to a wuxia film, which add flavor to an otherwise clichéd plot. Women characters played by Wen Shue Erl as the daughter of the Golden Snake, and Ching Li as his wife are also introduced to complicate the plot.

The one against five weapon-fight is of high-octane Venoms' quality: fights that involve exciting swordplay and fight-in-the-air stunts. Watch how Kwo Chui takes on his five opponents - a band of deviously skilled swordsmen: Wang Li, Lu Feng, Chiang Sen, Yu Thai Phing, and Chu Ke!

Worth watching for Venoms fans who want to see the Venoms' strutting out their kungfu skills in a wuxia film.

THE SWORD STAINED WITH ROYAL BLOOD (1981) is a convoluted tale of the martial world adapted by screenwriter Ni Kuang from a novel by Louis Cha (Jin Yong) that has been adapted for film and TV both before and since. There was a film version called SWIFT SWORD (1980) done a year earlier, also at Shaw Bros.; a TV series done in 1985; and a wire-fu version starring Yuen Biao made in 1993. It's evident from this film that a lot of plot has been condensed and packed into 104 minutes. Things move fast and there's an awful lot of detail to take in, much of it complicated by frequent flashbacks. It has less action and more talk than usual. Until the big fight finale, most of the fights tend to be short bouts, either friendly ones or tests of opponents' skills.

The plot has to do with a young martial artist, Yuan (Kuo Chui), the son of a slain Ming general, who has trained in isolation for 18 years and gets hold of a treasure map and rare kung fu manual left in a cave by the now-dead Golden Snake. Yuan then follows the instructions left with the map and visits the Wen family in search of a woman named Wen Yi. He is befriended by Wen Qing, another young martial artist, and becomes "sworn brothers" with him, little knowing that Qing is really Wen Yi's daughter who eventually reveals herself as a beautiful teenage girl. There is a matter of stolen gold that pits members of Yuan's own school, the Hua Shan school, against the Wen family. Yuan is in the awkward position of having to mediate between warring factions, but manages to do so quite skillfully. When he shows off the techniques he learned from the manual found with the treasure map, he arouses the Wen patriarch's suspicions. Those techniques were the sole province of Golden Snake, Wen Yi's lover, and the father of Wen Qing.

Most of the action in the last hour takes place in the Wen villa where the parlor is spacious enough to accommodate numerous intricate martial arts battles including the finale where Yuan goes up against the 5 Elements Array. This particular fight is quite spectacular and gives star Kuo Chui the opportunity to show off his considerable fighting and acrobatic skills. Two of his fellow Venoms (from THE FIVE VENOMS, 1978), Chiang Sheng and Lu Feng, are on hand among his many opponents. Honorary "Sixth" Venom Wang Li plays the Wen patriarch.

The lead actress is the spunky young Candy Wen Hsueh Erh, whom I've also seen in SWORDSMAN AND ENCHANTRESS, THE BRAVE ARCHER AND HIS MATE, ODE TO GALLANTRY, and HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD. She's cute and petite, but can play spoiled, headstrong, and impetuous very well. She's not a martial artist and her fight scenes are staged to cover up this fact, but she's quite appealing nonetheless. Longtime Shaw Bros. leading lady Ching Li has a smaller role as Wen Yi, Qing's mother, but it's an important one in the film as she maintains her love and devotion to Golden Snake (Lung Tien-Hsiang), who is seen in flashbacks to their tender romance, a relationship distorted by her family into a "rape."

But the real heart of this film is Kuo Chui as Yuan Cheng Chih, in one of the few films in which he plays the central heroic role (see also ODE TO GALLANTRY, 1982). He's a charismatic screen presence and superb martial artist and acrobat, but he also fleshes out the role of a man who seeks to use his powers for good and avoid bloodshed or killing. During one encounter, he's appalled when Wen Qing, still in male garb, kills an opponent unnecessarily. He always prefers to negotiate rather than fight. More than anything else, he's the reason to see this film. Wong Yue played the role in the earlier film, SWIFT SWORD, also reviewed on this site, and was quite good, but he doesn't dominate the film as Kuo Chui does here.

After watching the rather silly 36th Chamber trilogy this weekend, it was refreshing to finally see The Sword Stained with Royal Blood, which represents what I loved best from the Shaw Brothers era. Chang Cheh was by far my favorite director, the Vemon Mob folks were so extremely talented, and I loved the more serious and great stories that were being told in their movies. The story seems to jump around a lot early on, but it all comes together quite well by the end. Kuo Chui carries the film as usual and is excellent. Loved the sequence early on of him discovering the cave, though I have no idea why he went there in the first place. A lot of great action and I still just think these are so well made and better than the rest. Though I admit I'm pretty crazy about all the Shaw Brothers movies.

Like most kung fu films, we lose a lot in translation, but we get the gist of a young hero learning ways to fight powerful evil people.

Here, we're not sure for a while who the evil ones will be. In fact, the hero is played by an actor who often plays bad guys.

Here, he is a very likable chap, and he meets a girl who is very stubborn and has a bad temper. That's what makes the film as good as it is. The two leads are very charming and charismatic.

The acrobatics and constant gymnastics are what often become tedious in these films. Here, they are more than tedious. We stick through this crazy choreography, though, because of the charisma of the two lead characters.

Fortunately, although our hero ends up having to fight 5 kung fu artists by himself, he is not totally alone, as two family members are there to make sure the "henchmen" don't interfere. They have a brief battle of their own. A mute servant also adds to the appeal, as does some very stylistic settings, including a cave of danger with an Indiana Jones atmosphere.

All in all, very watchable, although the tedious fight scenes are a bit of a drag. In this film, it is the drama in between that salvages it.