龍沐香 (1970)

Hong Kong / 31 dic 1970 / This is a film of great importance. It's the first Mandarin martial arts film by Chor Yuen, marking the turning point in the career of the great director. Chor had enjoyed a successful career in the Cantonese cinema before his highly unlikely feat of making a glorious crossover to the other side of Hong Kong film's dialect divide. After Cold Blade, he would go on to make a string of similarly stylized swordplay films that are considered exemplary works of martial arts cinema. Cold Blade was considered lost when a print was discovered a few years back, generating great excitement despite the misfortune that a segment of the print was without sound. The Hong Kong Film Archive was fortunate to have located another print with a complete soundtrack, safeguarded in France by the collector Marie-Claire Quiquemelle. Though the lengths of the two prints do not match, the Archive's conservation team was able to restore the film to a condition much closer to that of the original. Extensive color grading was also done when this restored print was struck. (HKFA)