The Flying Dagger is a 1969 Wuxia film released by Shaw Brothers starring Cheng Pei-Pei and Lo Lieh, who collaborated in the previous year's Golden Swallow.
The dreaded bandit leader known as Jiao Lei, the Flying Dagger, is leading his bandits into terrorizing villages and killing innocent people. A swordswoman, Yu-ying (Cheng Pei-pei) ends up getting dragged into the bandits' vendetta when she kills a bandit in her first action scene which turns out to be Jiao Lei's son. But on the other hand, a warrior named Yang-qing (Lo Lieh) have a personal score to settle with the bandits.
The film contains examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Yu-ying, as portrayed by Cheng Pei-pei.
- Antagonist Title: Flying Dagger is the Red Baron nickname of Jiao Lei, a powerful bandit leader who frequently uses throwing knives in battle.
- Badass Cape: Worn by Yang-qing and Yu-ying. Jiao Lei is a villainous example.
- Badass in Distress: Yang-qing, brutally injured from a beating halfway through the film. While he’s capable of disposing a couple of bandits who tried to finish him off, he still needs to be saved by Yu-ying before enemy reinforcements can arrive.
- Bait-and-Switch Credits: The movie opens with a Deliberately Monochrome opening credit of a man and a woman making out in the grass, partially naked, for an entire minute, before suddenly being ambushed by bandits who then kills both the couple. Then Yu-ying shows up to confront the bandits, the movie switches to colour as the opening title shows up, and the movie quickly becomes the wuxia film it actually is.
- Combat Pragmatist: Flying Dagger Jiao Lei, the Big Bad, would challenge opponents to fight him one-on-one, only to lob throwing knives into them to wound them, before finishing off his injured opponents.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: Implied, after Yang-qing is rescued by Yu-ying and nursed to health, he seems to have developed feelings for her.
- High-Pressure Blood: Applies to many deaths in several scenes, especially on one unlucky bandit mook who gets disemboweled onscreen. His injury somehow gushes an exorbitant spray of red sauce resembling an overly inflated burst balloon full of tomato sauce.
- Karmic Death: Jiao Lei, who kills multiple people, including innocent civilians with throwing knives, ends up dying when Yang-qing hurls two of his own knives into his guts.
- Mugged for Disguise: In his first scene, after dealing with almost all the bandits that tries to sneak up on him, Yang-qing then orders the last bandit to strip.
- Offhand Backhand: After stripping a bandit of his clothes, Yang-qing then tells him to leave. The bandit, still pissed off, tries to attack Yang-qing from behind, but Yang-qing simply stabs him through the chest without looking backwards before he can even get close.
- Playing Possum: Yang-qing, after his moment of near-death, plays dead to lure a couple of bandits into checking him. Before waking up abruptly, capable of fighting back, and disposing of both bandits.
- Redshirt Army: The final battle between Jiao Lei’s bandit army and reinforcements on Yang-qing and Yu-ying’s side. While the bandits are clad entirely in blue, the allies on the other hand are in black with white patterns. Both sides have no survivors by the end of the battle.
- R-Rated Opening: Besides starting the film with a Gratuitous Rape moment that adds nothing to the film, right after the credits the movie quickly moves into a huge battle sequence where an entire village is being slaughtered by bandits.
- The Sociopath: Jiao Lei’s Lack of Empathy is displayed in his Establishing Character Moment; after killing the best warrior of a village who dares to challenge him, he then orders his bandits to release four hostages… only to use them as target practice, flinging his daggers nailing down one hostage after another. The last one appears to be a mere teenager, and Jiao Lei allows that hostage to make it as far as the boundary outside the village, before flinging a knife into his spine as well.
- Villain Opening Scene: Jiao Lei's minions killing a couple in the middle of their making out session before slaughtering a village who tried defending themselves.
