Usurpers of Emperor's Power, also known as God's Robbery, is a 1983 Shaw Brothers Wuxia historical epic directed by Hua Shan, being one of Hua's last martial arts epics he made for the studios in it's later days, and starring Anthony Lau, Leanne Liu and Max Mok.
Venerable Shaw badass Anthony Lau plays Li Lang, a former bodyguard of the ruling Prince, turned a drifter and wandering warrior after a betrayal; Li Lang's master, the lawful Prince Li Hou-zhou, has been betrayed by his evil younger brother, Prince Jin Guang-yi, the titular Usurper who intends to take over the ruling authority. With the Prince Jin enforcing a dictatorial rule over the Song Dynasty, Li Lang decides to join a La Résistance force who intends to have the evil Prince assassinated, in order to avenge his master. But along the way, Li Lang falls for Xiang Ling (Leanne Liu), a swordswoman in the resistance group, whose adoptive father, Master Chen Bo, is working for Prince Jin.
Usurper of TV Tropes:
- Action Girl: Xiang Ling, an expert swordswoman and one of the best fighters of the La Résistance.
- Act of True Love: In the following morning after the resistance has been wiped out, where Li Lang and Xiang Ling intends to launch a last-ditch attempt at assassinating Prince Jin, Xiang Ling wakes up... and finds out she's alone. As it turns out, Li Lang left to fulfil the mission alone, to prevent his beloved from partaking in a Suicide Mission. A horrified Xiang Ling rides away to find Li Lang, and arrives just in time to see him getting killed in an unsuccessful assassination attempt.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Late into the film, Prince Jin and Master Chen Bo managed to track down the Resistance's main hideout, in a coastal village, and immediately had their army invade the village to wipe out all resistance forces, including killing Golden Tiger and his family. When Li Lang and Xiang Ling returns, they are absolutely horrified at the sight of the carnage in the village, with every single one of their friends dead.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Li Lang and Xiang Ling, after realizing the resistance has been wiped out and they are the only ones left opposing the evil Prince, declares their love for each other that night, intending to work together and assassinate Prince Jin, or die in the attempt.
- The Bad Guy Wins: At the end of the movie, Prince Jin had eliminated off everyone opposing him, killing all the heroes, backstabbing his loyal aide Master Chen Bo, and successfully made himself the new self-appointed ruler of the Song Dynasty. Roll credits.
- Blood-Splattered Warrior: Most of the heroes ends up in this state; Golden Tiger while valiantly defending the village against Prince Jin's soldiers, Li Lang in an ill-fated attempt to kill Prince Jin as he fought his way past the prince's guards, and Xiang Ling after she gets stabbed to death while trying to attack Prince Jin.
- Body Double: The resistance's first attempt on Prince Jin's life on the vessel doesn't work, because after attacking what appears to be Prince Jin in a suit of bronze armour, it turns out the person in the armour is a double, with the real Prince watching from the shores nearby.
- Body Sushi: In an outdoor bath scene; Prince Jin had one of his handmaidens lying naked and covered in fruit, which he gleefully eats off her body.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Golden Tiger, a happy-go-lucky chieftain of the resistance, who is The Big Guy and nicest to Li Lang when he joins the resistance group.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Prince Jin loves doing this to his captured enemies, including one inflicted to a captured resistance member by pulling the member's spine apart while alive.
- Crash-Into Hello: This is how Li Lang and Xiang Ling first meets each other, while they're attempting to assassinate Prince Jin while the evil prince is on a parade.
- Darker and Edgier: One of the Shaws' most depressing movies from the 80s, with a The Bad Guy Wins ending.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: The fate of Master Chen Bo, the evil prince's very last obstacle to taking over the throne. Just as Master Chen is plotting how to ambush Prince Jin, the prince on the other hand got him In the Back, causing Chen to stumble down a flight of steps at which point he gets a dozen spears held by a group of Prince Jin's soldiers repeatedly thrushed into his body.
- Declaration of Protection: After Prince Li is double-crossed by the traitorous Prince Jin, leading to Prince Li and Ducchess Zhou being Driven to Suicide, this is the reason why the elder prince's bodyguard, Li Lang, is so determined to have Prince Jin killed off no matter what it takes.
- Downer Ending: The La Résistance's efforts to assassinate Prince Jin failed completely, with all the heroes, including their leader Golden Tiger and the protagonists Li Lang and Xiang Ling, failing to outlive the credits. The last person who is an obstacle to Prince Jin, which is Master Chen Bo, gets double-crossed and backstabbed, and is brutally killed. The movie then ends with Prince Jin successfully taking over the Song Dynasty as a self-appointed ruler. Of all the Shaws' output from the 80s, this one is easily among the bleakest of them all.
- Evil Is Petty: After Prince Jin raped the Duchess while his brother, the ruling Prince Li Hou-zhou is held at swordpoint, for some reason Prince Jin had his personal painter illustrate a portrait of him raping her to be kept in the palace's treasure vault.
- The Evil Prince: Prince Jin Guang-yi, the film's Big Bad.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The title refers to the main villain, Prince Jin's actions, which drives majority of the plot of the film.
- Explosive Breeder: Golden Tiger, the resistance leader, have 24 children with his numerous wives. He's also a Family Man that treats all his wives equally.
- Forced to Watch: Early in the film, in order to take over the throne, Prince Jin had his brother, Prince Li Hou-zhou, Lured into a Trap, having Prince Li and his loyal bodyguard, Li Lang, captured and held at sword-point, and then rapes Prince Li's wife, Duchess Zhou, while the prince and his protector is forced to watch the entire scene. In the aftermath, Prince Li and Duchess Zhou end sup being Driven to Suicide to preserve their Imperial Honour, leading to Li Lang, now declared an outcast, to avenge their deaths.
- Gorn: Most of the onscreen deaths tends to come with really graphic blood effects. Especially on mooks getting chopped into halves.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: During the village battle between Prince Jin's army intending to wipe out the resistance forces, Golden Tiger hacks at least two enemy soldiers into half from their waists.
- He Knows Too Much: This is the implied reason why Prince Jin ordered for the death of Master Chen Bo, the last person in his way to taking over the throne, due to the Master being the only obstacle in the Prince's attempt at taking over the entire dynasty.
- The Hero Dies: The two main characters, Li Lang and Xiang Ling, both died before the credits, although at least they died together.
- It's Personal: The massacre of the La Résistance, together with the in habitants of a whole village, including all of Golden Tiger's wives and all 24 of his children, makes the vendetta of Li Lang and Xiang Ling towards Prince Jin absolutely personal, culminating in the finale which is a Suicide Mission on the evil prince's life. The worst part? It failed.
- La Résistance: There is a legion of heroic resistance warriors based in a village, who covertly opposes Prince Jin's tyranny and intends to assassinate the Prince at all costs. Li Lang, on his quest to avenge his Master, ends up joining them for most of the movie.
- One-Man Army: Most of the named heroes, but especially Li Lang who fights his way through legions and legions of Prince Jin's guards, killing dozens and dozens of enemies all by himself before he gets mortally wounded by Master Chen.
- Powered Armor: A Ming Dynasty-era version of this trope shows up, as one of Prince Jin's outfits while he's going on a cruise, aware that there are assassins after him.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Li Lang's reason for trying to kill Prince Jin is to avenge his master, Prince Li Hou-zhou, but towards the end of the film, the final battle ends up being Li Lang and Xiang Ling going after Prince Jin to avenge the entire resistance, who gets wiped out by the evil prince's forces leaving them as the only two survivors. And they failed.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Li Lang and Xiang Ling, who both died the night after they confessed their loves for each other.
- Together in Death:
- Early in the film, the ruling first prince, Prince Li Hou-zhou, and his wife Duchess Zhou, commits suicide together by drinking poisoned wine.
- Li Lang and Xiang Ling in the final battle; she arrived just in time to watch him die in the hands of Master Chen, and in her subsequent attempt to attack Prince Jin she ends up getting killed by the Prince mere minutes later.
- The Usurper: Prince Jin Guang-yi, who forcefully took over the throne from his lawful older brother, Prince Li Hou-zhou, and systematically arranged to have everyone opposing him killed off. He's one of the villainous examples of this trope who actually succeeds at the end.
- I Work Alone: Enforced Trope. Li Lang and Xiang Ling are the final survivors of the doomed La Résistance crew, and decide to ambush Prince Jin's hideout together in a Suicide Mission to have the tyrant killed. But having fallen in love with each other, Li Lang is unable to allow any danger to happen to Xiang Ling, and so deliberately leaves for the mission without her the next morning. She wakes up and finds herself alone, because he already left on a doomed solo assassinations attempt.
