The Little black box = Hei xia die xue ji = 黑匣喋血记

On the eve of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Jinbiao, a Kungfu master, was selected to bring back a confidential document from Guangzhou. Jinbiao got the document in a little black box from another Kungfu master, Nan. Shortly after Jinbiao left, the government soldiers came to Nan’s house. Nan was killed and his dauguhter, Guiying and nephew, Jianxiong escaped. On his way back to Wuhan, Jinbiao was tailed and attacked by a masked person. In Changsha, Jinbiao sought help from Nan’s friend, Liu. But Jianxiong also came, telling everybody that Nan was killed and he lost touch with Guiying. Since Jinbiao and Jianxiong came to Liu’s house, a series incidents happened with one of Liu’s apprentice killed. Liu suspected Jinbiao and wanted to kill him. While Jinbiao was in touble, Guiying came and tried to convince Liu that Jinbiao was innocent. Later, Liu found out that Jianxiong was a spy of the Qing government, who plotted all the killing. In the end, Jianxiong was killed, but both Liu and Guiying also died in the fight with Jianxiong and the government soldiers in order to save Jinbiao, who eventually accomplished the mission. The Xinhai Revolution was the overthrow of China’s ruling Qing Dynasty in the early 1910s.

Martial arts film became a popular genre in Chinese cinema after The Shaolin Temple (1982) became a huge success in the early 1980s. Since the mid-1980s, the Chinese film industry went through a series of structural transformations aimed at marketization. In 1984, film was redefined to be an integral part of cultural industries instead of political institutions for the enforcement of Communist ideology. As a result, film studios began to produce more market-oriented films. This martial arts film reflected such a trend. This film combines elements of different genres such as martial arts and suspense. (3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; December 16, 2010)