Western Palace (1979)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2009
SYNOPSIS: The movie starts with a voice-over about the history of eunuchs in Chinese palace life. Then we get a little primer on boys becoming eunuchs (which manages to be sufficiently disturbing without being overly graphic). Incisive! And finally, the voice-over narrator (who we are hearing the last of) intones about the highly-influential eunuch Wang, "and this is his story."
Except -- it isn't. It's the story of a ragtag band of rebels attempting to smuggle a letter detailing Wang's treachery to the Emperor, and their battle against Wang's powerful Bureau of Information, run by a man named Hung. Our understanding of this film was greatly hampered by the fact that characters almost never referred to each other by name -- so we started calling them Fights With Scabbard, TB Guy, Two Swords Guy, Fishing Pole Guy, Invincible Sword Woman, Flag Woman, and so on. The only names I can recall are "Wang" (not appearing), "Hung" (who looked like a giant wizened Oompa Loompa), Mister Chao (pronounced "Cow"), and Go Tsing Tsu (three verbs in a row -- and I don't even remember which protagonist was Go Sing Sue).
Plot-wise, it's pretty much characters wandering around singly and in groups, with Bureau of Information thugs trying to catch them. Some of the characters are killed, and their letters taken to Hung, where it's discovered that those letters were fake. In the end, I think every letter was fake. The real letter was tattooed on the back of the old rebel leader (who claimed to have done it himself -- but I call shenanigans on that one). The bad guys captured him and tortured him, but thankfully failed to remove his shirt. The good guys rescued him, and smuggled him out of ... some random part of China. The End. No Wang. No Palace, Western or Otherwise. No eunuchs appearing in the plot portion of the film. No way to get 93 minutes of our lives back....
Except -- it isn't. It's the story of a ragtag band of rebels attempting to smuggle a letter detailing Wang's treachery to the Emperor, and their battle against Wang's powerful Bureau of Information, run by a man named Hung. Our understanding of this film was greatly hampered by the fact that characters almost never referred to each other by name -- so we started calling them Fights With Scabbard, TB Guy, Two Swords Guy, Fishing Pole Guy, Invincible Sword Woman, Flag Woman, and so on. The only names I can recall are "Wang" (not appearing), "Hung" (who looked like a giant wizened Oompa Loompa), Mister Chao (pronounced "Cow"), and Go Tsing Tsu (three verbs in a row -- and I don't even remember which protagonist was Go Sing Sue).
Plot-wise, it's pretty much characters wandering around singly and in groups, with Bureau of Information thugs trying to catch them. Some of the characters are killed, and their letters taken to Hung, where it's discovered that those letters were fake. In the end, I think every letter was fake. The real letter was tattooed on the back of the old rebel leader (who claimed to have done it himself -- but I call shenanigans on that one). The bad guys captured him and tortured him, but thankfully failed to remove his shirt. The good guys rescued him, and smuggled him out of ... some random part of China. The End. No Wang. No Palace, Western or Otherwise. No eunuchs appearing in the plot portion of the film. No way to get 93 minutes of our lives back....
Kevin Hogan
Worst Cover Copy
Ma Wu
Lieh Lo
