AKA: Bian cheng san xia, 邊城三俠
In this faithful remake of Hideo Gosha’s THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (1964), three skilled swordsmen in late-Ming Dynasty-era China join forces to aid impoverished villagers seeking to end unfair taxation by a corrupt local magistrate. Conflict escalates as the villagers kidnap the magistrate’s daughter and attempt to deliver a petition to a visiting governor. The magistrate responds by hiring criminals and skilled mercenaries to rescue his daughter, intercept the petition and put down the uprising by force. Driven by love for justice and brotherhood, the swordsmen set aside their own desires to help each other apprehend the corrupt magistrate and turn him over to the visiting governor.
This is the third film directed by Chang Cheh and the earliest of his many martial arts films to be in circulation after being restored by Celestial Pictures and re-released on home video. It brought the previously unknown stars from his previous low-budget film, TIGER BOY (1966), together again for their first big-budget production together. This includes Jimmy Wang Yu (THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN), Lo Lieh (KING BOXER) and Cheng Lei, all of whom formed the nucleus of Chang Cheh’s first generation of martial arts acting talent.
This film also began a long and very successful collaboration between Chang and Shaw Brothers’ top action directors, Tang Chia and Lau Kar-leung. They worked together on dozens of films over the next decade. By 1970, they were replaced by Ti Lung and David Chiang.
Genre: Wuxia
Companies: Shaw Brothers
Release Date: November 8, 1966
Producer: Runme Shaw
Director: Chang Cheh
Action Director: Tang Chia, Lau Kar-leung
Cast: Margaret Tu Chuan, Chin Ping, Fanny Fan, Jimmy Wang Yu, Lo Lieh, Cheng Lei
