Shih-szu and Lo Lieh to the Rescue!
The Rescue is a 1971 wuxia martial arts movie released by Shaw Brothers, starring Rachel Shih Szu, Lo Lieh and Bolo Yeung.
1279 AD, China was invaded by Mongols. The Yuan Dynasty rules the imperial court with an iron fist, and a single minister, Minister Wen Tien Hsiang (based on a real-life historical person
) is the sole inspiration for the Ming patriots to resist. After a failed uprising, Minister Wen is captured alive by the Mongols, but a group of loyal patriots are hell-bent to rescue the minister.
So begins this swashbuckling tale of sheer heroism, of a young warrior-girl in training, Shih-en (Rachel Shih), who joins a legion of patriots to uncover where Minister Wen is being kept, to stage a daring rescue mission. Along the way, she is joined by the mysterious wandering swordsman Ho-wu (Lo Lieh), who had his own agenda assisting Shih-en and the heroes.
Notably one of three collaborations between Lo Lieh and Rachel Shih released in 1971 note besides The Lady Hermit and Lady Of The Law. He gets a bigger role than her for once, however.
The Rescue contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Shih-en, the swordswoman and heroine of the picture, played by Shih-szu / Rachel Shih (then being developed by the studios as a backup for Cheng Pei-Pei).
- Arrow Catch: Ho-wu managed to catch at least 6 arrows, with his dual swords. He's just that good.
- Badass in Distress: When Shih-En, gravely injured after fighting off a horde of enemies, have to be rescued by Ho-wu who carries her on his back as he escapes the Mongol fortress.
- Bald Head of Toughness: Chief Cha-te, played by Bolo Yeung, is the only bald member of the patriots and The Big Guy among the heroes.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: The battle between the Ming swordsmen, led by Shih-En, Ho-wu and their Dwindling Party of fellow warriors, against the Mongols whose ranks include numerous halberd-wielding Elite Mooks.
- Catch and Return: At one point, a number of Mongol archers release a wave of arrows on Ho-wu. Ho-wu uses his swords to catch those arrows in mid-air, and send them back to the archers killing half a dozen all at once.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Ho-wu, Shih-en, and numerous Ming patriots infiltrates the Mongol dungeon using this method, with Chief Cha-te as their Trojan Prisoner.
- Dual Wielding: Shih-en uses twin shortswords in taking names, while Ho-wu alternates between twin swords or axes.
- Elite Mooks: The lowest-tier Mongol soldiers are clad in blue uniforms and dies in droves when fighting against the Ming patriots. Their platoon leader on the other hand wears brown uniforms, can be identified by their Barbarian Longhair, and puts up a far more competent fight, and are much harder to kill. There's also the Mongolian bladesmen unit, a dozen or so mooks that specializes in using halberds and glaives.
- Final Girl: By the credits, Shih-En is the Sole Survivor of the Ming patriots sent out to save Minister Wen Tian-hsiang.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Mongol Emperor, who besides establishing the Yuan Dynasty after conquering China, whose capture of Minister Wen leads to the very plot of the movie, doesn't really do much throughout the film.
- Heroic Sacrifice: By the end of the film, Shih-en and Ho-wu are the only two survivors, the former holding the cloth scroll containing the "Song of Uprightness" written by Minister Wen. With hordes and hordes of Mongol reinforcements after them, Ho-wu uses himself to raise a closing portcullis for Shih-en to escape, then drops it, crushing himself and preventing the Mongols from catching Shih-en so that she can deliver the scroll to the patriots and inspire them to continue fighting for a good cause.
- High-Pressure Blood: Happens numerous times during the many sword fights throughout the film.
- Improvised Weapon: In the final rescue sequence, as the patriots including Shih-en and Ho-wu drops their disguises and draw weapons, Cheif Cha-te, unarmed due to posing as a prisoner, instead decides to grab a set of prison gates and rips them off their hinges, using these to smash the skulls of several Mongol soldiers. He ultimately use these gates to flatten half a dozen enemies, and succumbs to his injuries while using his body to press the gates down.
- In a Single Bound: Ho-wu, while carrying the unconscious Shih-en, managed to leap across waves and waves of Mongol troops, avoiding their archers' arrows and leap over the fortress' walls with ease.
- Inspirational Martyr: Lord Wen Tian-hsiang, before he ultimately succumbs in prison, managed to write a "Song of Uprightness" to devote his loyalty to the revolution, which inspires his fellow Ming patriots to unite and fight against the Mongols.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Played straight in a way that there is only one named female character in the film. See Final Girl for details.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The Suicide Mission to rescue Minister Wen which made up the bulk of the film. It doesn't work, ultimately they only managed to restore Wen's legacy to inspire hope among the other heroes.
- Trojan Prisoner: Used more than once in the film by the patriots, in their attempts to infiltrate the Mongolian dungeon and rescue Minister Wen. There is Ho-wu allowing himself to be captured so that the Mongols can bring him into the bowels of the dungeon before he breaks out, and there is Chief Cha-te being taken in by Ming warriors (Shih-en among them) disguised as Mongol soldiers.
- Unwilling Suspension: A prisoner captured alive by the Mongols is subjected to this as part of a Cold-Blooded Torture sequence, where he gets hoisted by his wrists in the air while his captors flogs him and rubs salt into his wounds.
- Wire Fu: As usual.
- Wuxia
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Invoked, the patriotic warriors dedicated to fight against the Mongols and rescue Minister Wen are branded as "rebels" and "criminals" by the Mongol Emperor.
- Zerg Rush: The Mongol fortress holds nearly a thousand soldiers, against the Ming patriots whose number totals up to less than twenty. Near the end of the film the surviving patriots ends up fighting a seemingly endless wave of enemies, where every Mongol they killed are replaced by another mere seconds later.
