Black Five is filmed around Carnforth station in Lancashire, a location which had been the setting for the archetypal railway romance, David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) over 20 years earlier.
A baleful limping man walks through Prague. He is Asmodeus (Juraj Herz), the fiend of lustfulness, entertaining himself by putting together by magic couples of lovers.
Five criminals are arrested after a bank-robbery. One escapes, and the police officer in charge of transporting them arrests a new person at random to cover up for his negligence.
The Three Kingdoms period begins as the walled fortress of Hsin Yang falls to invaders. Centered around this historical event, The Last Days of Hsin Yang follows the escape of the prince of Hsin Yang as he hides with a small family and escapes from the sacked and burning city.
Three identical prints of a single 100 foot fixed-camera take are shown from beginning to end-roll light-flare, with a few feet of blackness preceding/bridging/following the rolls.
Anthony Steffen, as a young gunman who works as a circus performer, witnesses the killing of some outlaws, carried out by their leader and is credited with the deed.
"In my film I suggest that there is no greater mystery than that of the protagonists. War and Love are simply equated for what they are; the aftermath is inevitable, and a normal human condition, for which like the ancients one can only have pity and understanding.
Centring on the legend of the four ancient Chinese heroines, the film was a novelty for audiences at the time, as the singing performance was in Cantonese and used huangmei operatic rhythms—a popular trend in the 1960s, yet it retained traditional flavours by using operatic luogu percussion in the battle scenes.
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Have you watched Black Five yet? What did you think about it?