HEADS FOR SALE is a Shaw Brothers wuxia fable from 1970 that lacks any of the studio's big-name stars or director but nonetheless proves an entertaining way to spend 80 or so minutes of your life. The main character is a headstrong swordswoman who has a habit of disguising herself and going on a vengeful rampage when things don't go her way. The plot kicks off when she's rejected by a noble lord and decides to get revenge by going after him.The story soon develops further after your usual gang of bad guys are introduced into the story. Each has his own distinctive appearance: one guy is a brutally scarred master with past insults to repay; another's special power is to blow poison darts out of his mouth to dispatch his enemies. There are also some of the usual mercenary-like characters with outlandish weapons and costumes who invariably turn up in these kinds of film. The second half of the movie becomes a prison film of sorts before things end in one of those explosive, large-scale battle climaxes.HEADS FOR SALE boasts the typical exemplary production values and fine balance between sets and beautiful scenery. One of the locations utilised is a rope bridge overlooking the sea and looks to have been real; either an astonishing location or a very good piece of special effects work. Chiao Chiao is a memorable lead who holds her own against the studio's top stars like Cheng Pei-Pei and there are the usual familiar faces in support. The action is fantastic. It's a hit.

I kid you not: the young lady who stars in this one decapitates a villain (or two or three) and then walks down the street carrying a head aloft in a sack, crying: "Head for sale!" Now, in any other kind of movie, such a cry might make for a line quickly forming on the right- but, in a kung fu movie, it's a literal statement with absolutely no innuendo, no double entendre. HEADS FOR SALE is too often stagey (to the point that it sometimes resembles a television show or a stage play), and most of the actors seem like second-stringers. The action is sometimes more than a little awkward (watch closely and you'll see actors turning and looking for someone with whom to fight during some of the bigger fight scenes) and the wirework often gets in the way, with actors swinging along over the heads of others with their knees bent as if to avoid accidental contact. Had this been a Wanger (a Wang Yu movie), the title might well have been a pun (with all the innuendo and double entendres you could shake a three-section staff at); as it stands, it's something of a missed opportunity.

HEADS FOR SALE (1970) is distinguished by two contributions—it's got fight direction by Simon Hsu (aka Hsu Er Niu), the talented but unsung fight choreographer responsible for the action in such other 1970s Shaw Bros. adventures as DUEL FOR GOLD, BROTHERS FIVE, AMBUSH, THE FLYING GUILLOTINE, and A TASTE OF COLD STEEL, and its lead actress is Chiao Chiao, who normally played the swordsman's loyal girlfriend (ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, THE ASSASSIN). Here Chiao Chiao gets to be a swordswoman herself and puts on quite a good show for the most part. She plays the daughter of a reformed bandit (Ching Miao) and when her marriage proposal is reportedly rejected by a local hero, she goes ballistic and attacks his villa with swords in hand trying to kill him. It's all a misunderstanding and the hero (played by Korean actor Chen Liang) spends the rest of the movie trying to make amends with her. But the heroine's chance assist of a peasant husband whose wife has been taken by local gangsters to pay off gambling debts leads to a series of escalating confrontations between the good guys and the gang leader's growing band of thugs (one of whom is kung fu great Chen Sing). After numerous contrived twists and turns in which the screenwriter brings in new sets of characters to keep things moving every time the plot hits a dead end, it all culminates in a big battle at the villains' stronghold with dozens of combatants leaping, flipping, slashing, stabbing and dismembering with glee. Finally, the heroine and the lead villain have a dramatic duel on a rope bridge over a perilous gorge—filmed on location.The title refers to a scene where the heroine announces "heads for sale" after she's beheaded two of her opponents in a fight at the villain's headquarters and then attempts to get herself arrested with one of the heads so she can join the hero in jail to help rescue him and use the other head to get a local doctor framed so he can join them in jail as well and cure the ailing hero. (I told you it gets contrived, but at least it's never boring.) If you don't demand too much from the storyline and don't mind the B-list Shaw cast, there's a fast pace, short running time (81 min.) and lots of action, much of it filmed on outdoors locations. Chiao Chiao was one of the studio's more serious actresses and it's a treat to see her cut loose here and have some fun as a high-leaping, horse-riding, temperamental swordfighting heroine at the center of the action. She's no Cheng Pei Pei, but she's certainly good enough for this film.