The Woman Avenger (1980) Review
The Woman Avenger (1980) employs Taiwanese action heroine Ha Kwong-Li as a woman whose husband is murdered while she gets raped by bandits. Thereafter, a monastery rescues her where she trains in the art of the Dragon Fist to get revenge then goes undercover to find the culprits. A fairly straight forward plot, this movie has elements of comedy, fairly decent action and impressive training sequences with the flexible and talented kicker Ha Kwong-Li.
Ha Kwong-Li plays Lo Ling Chi whose husband is escorting something on police/government business when they are ambushed by a group of thugs. One of the bandits takes Lo Ling Chi to the side and does the unmentionable while her husband is massacred. Afterwards, she recovers at a temple and begs the head female monk to teach her kung fu once she learns that the lady has the capability. Because Buddhism preaches against violence, the female monk attempts to discourage Li Ling Chi from her path but Li Ling Chi counters that evil still needs to be countered.
In turn, the female monk accepts Li Ling Chi as her pupil where Li Ling Chi undergoes rigorous training to build up her strength with exercises that you would see in other training montages like carrying water, breaking bamboo, etc. Yet her determination for revenge is her chief motivator here where she overlooks the suffering she must endure.
The bandits themselves plot to lay low since the police are watching and that they have competition that despises them. Despite collecting the loot, they have a difficult time fencing it and decide to slowly sell it as antiques while letting the heat slowly die down on them. But the main boss is your typical white haired bad guy type. Quite honestly, I didn’t recognize him but you, of course, have to realize if the guy has white hair and a lengthy fu-manchu mustache, he must be a bad ass of sorts.
The training montage continues but first Li Ling Chi is taught to temper her anger and swear never to use kung fu for evil. Eventually, the female monk challenges Li Ling Chi and determines that she is ready to return to the world. However, she continues to emphasize the lessons of peace, despite how the memories of her encounter with the bandits would haunt her forever. With a shorter hair cut, Li Ling Chi leaves the temple in disguise as a young man.
Her first encounter is with another group of highway robbers where some officer gets assaulted. Li Ling Chi almost immediately defies the “no killing” rule and stabs one of the guys to death. The other two clowns hobble off while she tries to save the dying officer. Although he doesn’t make it, the officer gives his last wish to inform his captain of the names of the bandits. In turn, she takes his body back to the police and receives the bigger picture of just whom these bandits are. She requests to join up with the police and go undercover, revealing her real identity as a female.
In the town, she hunts thugs encountering some low grade criminals and beats them up while helping out a fatso (he’s actually called Fatso by everyone and I will too from here on out). In saving Fatso, Li Ling Chi makes a bargain with him by getting a free room at where he’s working in exchange for some lessons in kung fu. The place she’s at is run by one of the mini bosses who nearly recognizes Li Ling Chi. But apparently all these people have rotten eyes for not being able to distinguish that this is a girl even though she’s clearly wearing lipstick. Nevertheless, the mini boss allows her to stay on the condition she doesn’t make trouble.
Naturally, that means Li Ling Chi is going to be a little nosy in searching the home as a ninja. The mini boss miraculously hears a disturbance and attacks her. She escapes back to her room with Fatso and they both deny anything happening. Luckily, Fatso is loyal to her and reveals nothing to the mini boss. The following day the people train at the site as another mini boss appears. Li Ling Chi recognizes a medallion he’s bearing but does not think he’s the one that raped her. Nonetheless, we learn this guy is the mini boss’ nephew and is suspicious of Li Ling Chi, warning his uncle that the police man that got robbed previously was part of a failed mission. This puts the two on high alert. Fatso overhears them plotting and warns Li Ling Chi, who tells Fatso to get out but promising she will eventually reveal everything once the situation is cleared.
Li Ling Chi ambushes one of the robbers but the nephew is there waiting for her. They have a fight where Li Ling Chi cripples the nephew and gets the robber to reveal the location of the nephew’s father, who gave the son the pendant. She lures the father out to a distant location and tries to get him to reveal the identities of the other men. Of course, a fighter proceeds where she not only cripples him but crushes his larynx.
Back at the uncle’s home, he and the man that raped Li Ling Chi discuss the strange recent occurrences as well as the main boss’ orders to remain passive. The rapist (considered the brains of the group) goes to a brothel while above Li Ling Chi spies upon them. She follows the brains guy to the brothel and learns that he has a special inclination for a girl called Orchid. At the same time, another woman begins following Li Ling Chi around from the shadows.
In the morning, Li Ling Chi awaits at the uncle’s courtyard with a pair of mini spears and bereft of her disguise. She challenges the uncle and gains her revenge. It’s interesting to note here how her mini spears could be combined to form a double spear. Also, Ha Kwong-Li used a similar type of weapon in Shaolin Invincible Sticks. After disarming the uncle, Ha Kwong-Li uses her Dragon Fist to disable the guy and again crush his larynx.
Later, Li Ling Chi goes back into disguise to speak with Orchid to get the identity of the brains mini boss as her circle of vengeance continues. Part of what she learns from Orchid is that this guy served as her doctor and is an expert at acupuncture. At the big boss’ HQ, he’s practicing a style called the Double Strike. The brains/doctor mini boss and him chat about the recent killings but the main boss reveals that the girl is onto them and has figured out much about her. He gets the doctor mini boss to go back to the brothel to deal with her.
At the brothel, the doctor mini boss requests for new girls while Li Ling Chi waits as a new worker there. She goes to see him now disguised as one of the prostitutes working there (of course, this gives her the opportunity to dress up nicely). The doctor though is ready for Li Ling Chi and delivers a needle that disables her right arm. Before she can pull it out though, he informs her that prematurely removing it would cause paralysis. This allows him to beat her up until the mysterious woman shows up to defend her. The mysterious woman demonstrates that she too knows the Double Style and threatens to kill the doctor if he doesn’t back off. However, she has a limp so she can’t fight at 100%.
A small flashback showing the partial origin story of the big boss where he exhibits his nefarious traits in murdering a master who had been his teacher. The teacher also is this mysterious woman’s father. The big boss breaks her leg here while the teacher fends him off so she can escape.
The pair formulate plan to defeat the big boss, which involves Li Ling Chi mastering the mysterious woman’s various techniques, including her kicking technique (which is actually Ha Kwong-Li’s real style). So we have the second set of training sequences, which are actually far more impressive than the first ones because we get to see Li Ling Chi power up through some really brutally designed exercises. One major difference between the training here and other training montages is that her new teacher is very supportive. Most times when you have the teacher-student relationship, it’s more abusive even though over time the teacher gradually gains respect for the student as the student progresses. I think this is one of those rarer instances that show how one can act as a positive reinforcement but still remain demanding and effective.
One thing the female teacher reveals to Li Ling Chi is the weakness of the Double style where Li Ling Chi can defeat the user by aiming for the crotch to kill him. They discuss their future plans where Li Ling Chi wishes to eventually open a gym with her newfound friend but the creepy doctor character shows up with his men. Li Ling Chi gets the doctor creep to submit and confess who ordered the assault, which in agreement she would spare life. The conniving doctor tries another trick with a needle but Li Ling Chi counters and snaps his neck.
That draws out the big boss who applauds their effort since he probably wanted to eliminate the goof anyway. The final fight is mostly Li Ling Chi against him and it’s mostly impressive when she’s on offense. The female teacher does get involved at some point to help Li Ling Chi out but the surprise to me was that the aforementioned crotch shot is never delivered. Instead, Li Ling Chi uses her invented move of climbing up some ropes to discombobulate the evil boss then deliver numerous overhead kicks to give this guy some bad CTC before a final kick knocks him down cold.
So for me this movie in all likelihood is Ha Kwong-Li’s best effort as it really an epic that features her. She has another movie called The Leg Fighters that is impressive when she’s involved. However, there’s a really annoying sidekick that makes me hate that movie. Also, she comes off more entitled there whereas in The Woman Avenger, she has a very clear cut purpose. My favorite movie of hers though remains Shaolin Invincible Sticks, although she’s positioned more as a side character.
Nonetheless, this movie was fairly enjoyable as one of those independent movies. The pacing is decent and it doesn’t drag. The villains are pretty much one sided characters but I think that’s by design so that when Li Ling Chi is taking revenge, there’s no sympathy towards them. Compared to the recent kung fu movies I’ve reviewed, I will state that I thought the action was far better. Part of that is because I am biased towards Ha Kwong-Li as I think she’s one of the best early martial arts females around, only second to Kara Hui. But not only is she pretty but her moves are insane because of her incredible flexibility. And while she does perform her sets of rolls and tumbles, they don’t feel as egregious compared to the usual Taiwanese acrobatics stuff because she combines her moves with hard hitting kicks and impressive flexibility. Lastly, I think Ha Kwong-Li is quite charming and here she gets to play a few roles beyond her bad ass female fighter form.