‘Super Spies and Secret Lies’: Three Undercover Classics from Shaw Brothers (1966-69)

The three action-adventure films brought together in this new Eureka Classics Box Set are pure entertainment, capturing the pop culture zeitgeist of the 1960s through the idiosyncratic lens of Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers studios. The action can swing from physical comedy to chaotic combat, from nightclubs to underground bases, from inept cops to criminal masterminds. They’re stylish, silly, sexy, some might say sexist, matinee-style movies and very easy to enjoy. They’re also just as easy to pull apart but any criticisms could just as readily be levelled at the early James Bond movies that they clearly pastiche. In Hong Kong, the genre became known as “Jane and James Bond” because they were just as likely to star female protagonists and supervillains.

The appetite for spy films reached its zenith in the 1960s following the international success of Dr No (1962) and the James Bond franchise but this was by no means a new fad. Public interest in espionage and spy stories was kickstarted 50 years earlier with the high-profile arrest and sealed trial of a Parisian burlesque performer known as Mata Hari, who was executed as a spy in 1917. Earlier than that, Louis Feuillade’s cinema series, Fantômas (1913), was a hit in France, adapted from an already popular series of novels by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. Feuillade made three more notable film serials—Les Vampires (1915-16), Judex (1916), and Tih Minh (1918)—featuring spies, gangs, and criminal masterminds. The indelible legacy that these series left on the spy and crime genres has been celebrated with their recent restoration and release as a ‘Masters of Cinema’ box set, also from Eureka Entertainment.

Spies remained in the cultural consciousness during the interwar years with films like Fritz Lang’s Spione (1928) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Agent (1936). With the onset of World War II, the genre had a renaissance with plenty of propaganda-propelled movies, including the updated Universal-produced Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone, which invariably involved international espionage and saw Holmes and Watson foiling Nazi plots.

Though the war went cold in Europe, conflict soon morphed into the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Cultural Revolution in China. So, for Asia, it was still wartime during the swinging sixties, and if one pays attention to the airport scenes in these Shaw Brothers spy classics, US military planes may be glimpsed. Hong Kong must have felt more isolated from mainland China than ever, and although these three films are clearly looking to the west as a potential market, they also embody a cultural identity distinct from the Bondmania they may be mimicking. This makes them of historic cultural interest as well as simply great fun. As they were intended as escapist entertainment and, to appeal to the broadest audience, they avoided any overt politicising. The men’s sharp suits, the women’s gorgeous frocks, the classic cars, and garish pop art décor is more than enough to keep me happy.

The Golden Buddha (1966)

Pursued by the murderous Skeleton Gang, three people travel from Bangkok, Thailand, to the ruins of the ancient Siamese capital Ayutthaya in search of lost treasure, using three small Buddha statues.

The opening shots of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport, with its modernist architecture, ramps, and flyovers, are for real but have the feel of a miniature from a Gerry Anderson production, and one should expect similar plot complexities. There are additional parallels to Thunderbirds (1965–66), which also featured an international spy ring run by a criminal mastermind, ‘The Hood’, who was of ill-defined Asian origin as a nod to Dr. No and the perceived Cold War threat of China.

Here, it’s the machinations of the Skeleton Gang that embroil our suave hero, Paul Cheung (Paul Chang Chung). It all starts when he meets an old friend, Chan Chung (Pei-Shan Chang), during a business flight to Thailand, and their identical briefcases get mixed up in a classic switcheroo, only it’s entirely accidental. After a brief comedic detour to a massage parlour, thanks to a mischievous cabby, Paul opens the briefcase back at his hotel room to find it contains a statuette of Thailand’s famous Golden Buddha. Paul realises the mistake and sets out to retrieve his business papers and return his friend’s briefcase. However, he discovers his friend has been murdered and his own briefcase rifled. On closer inspection back at the hotel, he finds a secret code hidden in the base of the golden Buddha and makes a note of it before filing it off and reassembling the statuette. Good thinking, because that night he’s attacked in his room by three thugs who eventually subdue him with a lurid yellow sleeping smoke and steal it.

The next morning, he’s taken in by the police to be interviewed but soon realises that they are imposters and intend to abduct and torture him for the secret. However, they are not prepared for his karate and judo skills. He gets the better of them in a very methodically executed fight scene and seeks out Chan Chung’s older brother, Chan Chung Tai (Lo Wei, also the film’s director). He learns that the two brothers and their sister, Mei-nan (Hsin-Yen Chao), each had a golden Buddha which were heirlooms handed down over the generations and said to be the key to locating a long-lost family fortune of hidden treasure. They realise that, together, the hidden messages in each one combine to provide directions. Thus, the three Buddhas are the central MacGuffin as the surviving siblings must bring the clues together and find the treasure before the criminal Skeleton Gang beats them to it—both figuratively and literally.

Their quest is complicated as Mei-nan had allowed her statuette to be buried with an aunt who had loved it so. When they visit the cemetery, they find that her grave has already been exhumed by the Skeleton Gang. However, the attendant had removed the Buddha prior to burial and sold it to a dealer, introducing a sort of detective thread as they track down the missing piece of the puzzle. Along the way, there’s plenty of James Bond-style intrigue with red herrings, imposters, and the Skeleton Gang’s top operative, ‘Number Four’ (Fanny Fan Lai), causing a stir by being just shy of too sexy for the censors of the day, appearing fully nude albeit glimpsed from the back. The contrived plot twists eventually lead to the secret underwater base of the Skeleton Gang whose leader (Fung Ngai) sports a high-collared cape and gold lamé suit—perhaps a nod to Goldfinger (1964).

In stylistic terms, this easily aces Lo Wei’s later films that he’s better known for—The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972)—which accrued legendary status down to launching the career of Bruce Lee. Those too had their silly touches amid the violence, added for giggles – for example, Bruce Lee knocking an opponent through a wall leaving a cartoonish cut-out of his outline. As would be expected, the fight scenes here are nowhere near as fierce. In fact, they’re so clockwork as to be comedic, which was probably the intention. They’re certainly not the kinetic martial arts that Shaw Brothers would be famous for, though I can imagine the kids of the day watching wide-eyed, learning by mimicking the moves for their next game of spy vs spy. I was reminded of Mrs Peel’s kicks and chops from the opening titles of The Avengers (1961–69). Fans of that cult British television series, or even The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–68) from across the Atlantic, will find it easier to enjoy this movie because they’ll be better tuned-in to its irony and sense of fun.

Angel with the Iron Fists (1967)

A glamorous secret agent must infiltrate a diamond smuggling ring by joining the criminal gang known as the Dark Angels.

Lo Wei again takes the director’s seat in this very loose reworking of Dr. No and opens with a similar assassination of a secret agent by ruthless assassins. Only instead of a trio, we have eight dark-suited gunmen. Remember that the villainous Dr No had double-crossed a Chinese Tong before fleeing to join SPECTRE. Standing in for both the Tongs and SPECTRE are the female-dominated Dark Angels, led by their formidable leader (Tina Chin Fei).

The writer of The Golden Buddha, Wei Shih, is again on scripting duty, so there’s a similar feel to the plot and characters, meaning the two films easily blur together when watched back-to-back, especially as the same Shaw Brothers-contracted talent make up some of the cast. Oscar Tung returns as cinematographer and makes everything look clean and clear, turning some cheap but effective production design into almost graphic compositions that just look so wonderfully 1960s.

Special agent 009 (Lily Ho) arrives to complete the mission of her murdered colleague by infiltrating a diamond-smuggling ring and uncovering those responsible. It’s not long before her ostentatious diamonds attract the attention of jeweller Tieh Hu (Tang Ching), who sounds her out as a potential buyer for some ‘special stones’ that will be arriving soon. It doesn’t take much sleuthing and cat-burglary for her to reveal that he’s also known as operative C7, working alongside Dark Angel B1 (Fanny Fan Lai), who is introduced as Miss Dolly, a singer at the Flying Horse nightclub, wearing a rather figure-hugging mesh dress that was almost too risqué for the day. Fanny Fan Lai is instantly recognisable from her memorable appearance in The Golden Buddha, which earned her a naughty reputation and the nickname of ‘The Oriental Bardot’, which she continues to capitalise on here, operating the secret spy radio in her vanity case, wrapped only in a bath towel. This is an early appearance for Lily Ho, who would become one of the Shaw Brothers’ top starlets and had just starred together with Hsin-Yen Chao in Princess Iron Fan (1966)—the Shaw Brothers’ take on the classical tale of The Monkey King and the White Bone Demon.

There’s a good array of false identities, undercover sleuthing, a bumbling Police Inspector (Lo Wei), diamonds being smuggled in the head of a mannequin masquerading as a cadaver being brought across the border in a hearse, and a car chase but with a tricked-out Austin-Healey instead of Bond’s trademark Aston Martin. There’s also some fun with gender-swapping as men disguise themselves as women and 009 dons an unconvincing false moustache to pass as a man. It’s all a bit by-the-numbers but worth the ride for the superb pop art production design of the Dark Angel’s secret base, complete with a wall-sized map of the world dotted with blinking lights indicating the crime syndicate’s nefarious global network. Finally, throw in some deadly booby traps, some sort of execution-by-heat-ray apparatus, and a few gadgets for the good guys, and it all adds up to a silly and sometimes unexpectedly callous caper that was successful enough to warrant a sequel, Angel Strikes Again (1968).

The Singing Thief (1969)

A jewel thief decides to turn over a new leaf. He starts anew as a professional singer.

Rather than leaning on the Bond franchise, The Singing Thief is a reworking of Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955) and follows several of the same plot beats, beginning with Diamond Poon (Jimmy Lin Chong), once a notorious jewel thief who has gone straight as a nightclub singer whose songs recount his past misadventures and romantic conquests. We are treated to a few full performances, including one for the opening credits that sees him dressed as a pantomime pirate. However, Detective Pao (Mui Yan) suspects his involvement in a rash of recent robberies where the perpetrator follows the same modus operandi of stealing from the bedrooms of sleeping women and leaving a red carnation on their pillow as a calling card.

So, it’s in Poon’s interest to catch the thief and clear his name. He begins by paying a visit to Wang Guoji (Lo Lieh) who used to fence his stolen wares but is now purporting to be an honest businessman to honour his young wife, Tian Xin (Essie Lin Chia). He provides a list of the richest women in Hong Kong who have not yet been robbed, and so Diamond Poon decides to think like his old self and predict where the copycat will strike next, hoping to beat them to it and catch them red-handed. However, the police have a similar cunning plan and enlist the most bejewelled woman to act as bait and catch Diamond Poon. The first act is pretty much following the same plot as Hitchcock’s classic and also looks as good in its own way as a work of pop art.

Now, this light romantic musical thriller is something very different to the usual fare of director Chang Cheh. He’s one of the more renowned directors at Shaw Brothers who helped kickstart the New Wuxia revival with his One-Armed Swordsman (1967) and must have just walked on or off the set of its sequel Return of the One-Armed Swordsman (1969). However, staging musical numbers and fight scenes aren’t that different, both involving kinds of choreography. But no need to worry, there’s a stark swing to something much darker for the finale when Diamond Poon sheds his nice guy mantle to deal with the double-crossing villain he once called a friend. It all kicks off in a crematorium with a full-on Shaw Brothers brutality and fight choreography by studio stalwarts Lau Kar-leung and Tong Kai.

For me, this is the most satisfying of the trio presented here, offering what must have been a very refreshing take on several tired tropes. It also bears some resemblance to Seijun Suzuki’s excellent Tokyo Drifter (1966) with its slick pop art aesthetic which also featured a singing protagonist. Around this time, Shaw Brothers were importing Japanese technicians to help modernise their style and innovate their filmmaking technology, so maybe there was some crossover. The following year, Chang Cheh delivered a sequel of sorts in The Singing Killer (1970) which sounds like the same basic premise but with a different cast.

HONG KONG | 1966 • 1967 • 1969 | 316 MINUTES (TOTAL) | 2.35:1 | COLOUR | MANDARIN

Limited Edition 2-Disc Blu-ray Special Features:

• Limited edition of 2000 copies only.
• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling.
• 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures.
• Original mono audio tracks.
• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release.
• NEW audio commentaries by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. These provide an excellent accompaniment that really improves understanding and enjoyment of the films. The duo know the locations well and have worked with some of the cast and crew, slipping in plenty of personal anecdotes and insight. It’s quite difficult to find out much about many of the Asian stars so, their thorough biographies of cast and crew, cross-referencing their other screen credits, are most welcome. Aside from the plentiful Making Of information and production notes, there’s also some fun banter and their relaxed presentation style makes for great viewing company.
• ‘International Super Spies’—NEW 22-minute interview with James Bond expert Llewella Chapman on global Bondmania in the 1960s. In which she traces the origins of James Bond on screen from the first television adaptation of Casino Royal in 1954 to the more famous movie franchise. She then analyses the appeal of the suave yet deadly character and the milieu of his travelogue lifestyle before comparing the three spy and supervillain movies presented here.
• NEW 17-minute interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong, editor of Martial Arts Studies. In which he discusses the political aspects of James Bond and how villains can be interpreted as metaphors for the Communist threat during the Cold War. He notes that in Hong Kong, villains are more clearly capitalist and motivated by wealth, while the heroes also lead bourgeois, aspirational lifestyles. He explores Hong Kong’s fascination with Hollywood in the 1960s and how they sought to imitate but also innovate and reinvent to create something unmistakably Asian that would also appeal to foreign markets.
• Reversible sleeve featuring individual sleeve artwork for each film.
• Original trailers.
• PLUS: A Limited Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on all three films by Iain Robert Smith, author of The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema. Not available at time of review.

Cast & Crew

directors: Wei Lo (Buddha & Fists) • Cheh Chang (Thief).
writers: Wei Shih (Buddha & Fists) • Kang-Chien Chiu (Thief).
starring: Zaldy Zshornack, Perla Bautista, Alfonso Carvajal & Fanny Fan (Budha) • Lily Ho, Fanny Fan, Tina Chin-Fei, Ching Tang & Wei Lo (Fists) • Lily Ho, Jimmy Lin Chong, Chia Essie Lin, Lieh Lo, Yan Mui & David Chiang (Thief).