The wicked Green Dragon clan (led by the Flying Dagger Jiao Lei) rape and kill with abandon, until the Yu family (including Cheng Pei Pei) intervene. They are not strong enough to thwart the clan, so are anxious to earn the services of wandering dagger man Yang Qing (Lo Leih). They think their luck’s in for sure when he starts killing the clan on his own. However, Yang is indifferent to the power struggle and is largely just looking out for himself...

FLYING DAGGER (not to be confused with the 1993 film with the same English title, or HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS for that matter) is another example of the east looking at Westerns for inspiration. There are elements of Leone’s A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (which was a remake of YOJIMBO, of course) and Corbucci’s DJANGO here for sure. Instead of a six-shooter, our antagonist and protagonist both have four-shooters – a belt holding four daggers used with deadly accuracy by both sides. The characterisation of main character Yang Qing is also quite unusual – he’s actually a bit of a bastard. Just when you think you’ve got him (and the film) figured out, he goes and HELPS the evil Jiao Lei, for no other reason than he CAN, it seems.

Cinematically, the film opens in black and white to tell the back-story of Jiao Lei’s son raping and killing, only to be taken down decisively by our heroine. What’s unusual is that the credits are also in monochrome, and colour only enters afterwards in a huge gushing of blood right on the camera – quite an effective trick. Some of the camera work is decidedly unsteady though – and some of the Shaw trademark zooms early on nearly miss their target altogether, and made me rather dizzy for a while! Maybe Chang was training up a new cameraman at the time...

The action scenes are typical of the era, but there’s a bit of flash here and there, and copious amounts of claret. The story stalls a few times, but always manages to get back on track eventually. Its main selling point, though, appears to be Yang Qing’s seeming lack of chivalry – something quite uncommon in a film of this nature.