Last Hurrah For Chivalry - Tumblr Posts
Wei Pai in Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979)
Hi everyone! I’d like to get serious today and really talk about Wei Pai (韋白) since I’ve seen a lot of things that really made me sad. Recently I visited several websites about him, and I see people dismissing him as the “decorative pretty boy” of the Venoms, who didn’t seem to have any talent, and I just feel that we need to appreciate him more. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who also sadly comment that he looks like a snake and that he is creepy. @venomous-five and I planned to address this topic on our podcast but I thought it should be noted here. While Wei Pai is pretty, I feel that we don’t recognize his talents enough so I am here to talk about his wonderful acting! I made these gifs to show off a few of his various characters that I believe shows his range. The first pair is Chang San / Cheung Sam from Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979) who is a protagonist and this character goes through a vary of emotions throughout the film from what clips I got to watch. He has such a great expression of this character and all of the various feelings you’d expect a more realistic person to go through. It is one of my favorite examples because it is Wei Pai’s first film away from Shaw Brothers but it looks like such a solid performance. I gave more of a rougher, dominant aura of the character and then a clip where he briefly smiles but you can see it begin to alter into a look of concern.
The next set of gifs is Ma San Fan from The Cheeky Chap (1980) which looks like one of his best movie performances! This character is more of a comedic and adorable persona which I love. He’s cheeky like it says in the title but you also get to see some badass fights. When I tell you Wei Pai went HARD it is no exaggeration. I adore that he gets to show off such a fun side when he’s taking on a lot of guys at once. He even had a mouth full of food and laughed/grinned while he was trying to talk to them. That was something that I feel is overlooked since a lot of people don’t seem to have seen that movie. The first gif is when he’s staring up at Candy Wen Xue-Er as if he’s deep in thought after she abruptly startled him up from a pile of hay. The second gif is when he was sprawled out waiting for some men to come outside and he flashes them a smile as he hops up to speak to them.
Thirdly, we have Mai Feng from Invincible Shaolin (1978) and I feel this was perfectly suited for him. He has said in an interview I discovered that he practiced martial arts since he was a child and even put wooden dummies in his house which his character uses during training. Wei Pai’s character is very thoughtful but he does want to do the right thing in the film. It’s just that they were all deceived. So this character is a mix of precious, determined, intelligent, and prevails through his many challenges. So the gifs are one of his training scenes. The first one shows off his forms which look similar to the martial arts that Wei Pai said he learned which is why it feels so natural to me! The next was when he lost his balance and fell off into a flowerbed. I find it to be great acting when he starts to flail and attempt to regain his balance before he fell. Then the sweet look when he gazes up as if he’s embarrassed by what happened. Having things stuck to his face only makes it better. His fight scenes in this movie were incredible and I thought he did an amazing job displaying the emotions of pain, regret, then realization after later events took place. Mai Feng had only done what was right but he was very honorable. They even tried to help each other in the end so there was a change of heart.
A couple other things from last year