lady avenger

Was asked by Fantasia to scan in pics I had from the 1981 Taiwanese "black film" LADY AVENGER as they will be screening it along with the doc, TAIWANESE BLACK MOVIES on the genre of "black" films - racy and violent films that had heavy social and political undertones, LADY AVENGER being one of these.

Documentary filmmaker Hou Chi-jan takes an illuminating look at the wave of lurid female avenger flicks that flooded Asian screens in the early 1980s while simultaneously exploring just how the sociopolitical climate of Taiwan at the time proved the perfect catalyst for such subversively political films. As the youthful romance films of the 1970s began to lose their appeal, filmgoers flocked to such exploitative crime films as The First Error Step and On the Society File of Shanghai - the former of which was purported to be based on a true story, and the later of which cashed in on the increased interest in communist-critical Mainland literature (casually known as "scar literature). Violent, sexy, and often overtly political, these films drew record crowds as the KMT's grip on Taiwan slowly began to slip and the commercial Taiwanese film industry fell prey to government influence. As the so-called Taiwan New-Wave began to emerge in 1982, such over-the-top trash classics as The Lady Avenger, Queen Bee, and Girl with a Gun would gradually lapse into obscurity. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide