The Proud Twins (4 Stars)

This is a strange film. The plot is serious, but it's played like a comedy. Fu Sheng isn't just a good fighter, he's a born comedian, with slap stick routines that remind me of Jackie Chan.

The princess of  Yi Hua was in love with her teacher, Jiang Fung. She wanted to marry him, but he fell in love with her maid Hua Yuet Lo. They ran away to live in the mountains, so the princess sent her soldiers to pursue them. The maid had given birth to twin sons. The princess had the parents killed, but she planned an extravagant revenge on the whole family. She separated the twins. She gave one son to be adopted by her housekeeper. She gave the other to be raised by a gang of villains. The twins grew up without knowing who they were. When they were 18, she ordered Hua Wu Cheh (the twin in her palace) to seek out and kill Jiang Xiao Yu (the villainous twin). It didn't matter to her which one of them died. She would only tell the victor afterwards that he'd killed his twin brother, in order to crush him with grief.

That's a dramatic story, but as I said above, the film is a comedy. Jiang Xiao Yu is brought up to be a master thief, and he's also a skilled fighter. His fellow villains trained him, but now he's a man they're jealous of his skills and they chase him away. He gets into various mishaps, such as being given a fake treasure map that leads him into a forbidden temple. He's also kidnapped by a woman who keeps men as slaves. She forces men to have sex with her 18 times a day, killing them if they fail. 18 times? I wouldn't last a single day!

Hua Wu Cheh saves Jiang Xiao Yu's life several times, because he's been given strict instructions that no one else is allowed to kill him.

Hua Wu Cheh is accompanied by six beautiful swordswomen...

but Jiang Xiao Yu has to rely on himself.

Maybe he has a little assistance. He meets a young warrior on the road called Tien. Wait! Doesn't Tien look like a girl? At first I thought it was another case of transgender casting, like in "The 14 Amazons",  but then Jiang Xiao Yu sees Tien naked and finds out she's really a girl.

Is he really that stupid? In my whole life I've never once met someone and had to ask if he's a man or a woman. Whether the person is young, middle-aged or old, I can always tell the difference. Even Fu Sheng with his long hair is obviously a man.

Or at least, it's obvious to me. In the film he's mistaken for a queen!

Like others of the Shaw Brothers films I've been watching recently, a problem is that there are too many characters. It's difficult to remember all the names, even if the names are amusing. For instance, this film has villains with names like Sex-Starved Bai Hai Sin, Demi-Devil Yin Jiao Yau, Cannibal Li Da Jue and Smiling Dagger Ha Ha Er. The Green Fairy is easy to recognise because she's always dressed in green, obviously, but in the fight scenes, of which there a lot, it's difficult to keep track of who's who.

I thought at first I might give the film a lower rating, but it gets better towards the end when the comedy is reduced.