Lucky 13 = Xianu shisan mei

This is a revenge story taking place in the Qing Dynasty. Miss He Yufeng’s father is a junior officer who offended Minister Ji Xiantang for refusing Ji’s son’s proposal to marry his daughter, Yufeng. Yufeng’s parents were killed by Ji but she narrowly escaped. Yufeng learns kung-fu from a kung-fu master and swears to revenge. After years of practice, Yufeng becomes a kung-fu master and plans to assassinate the Minister. Before she leaves, Yufeng’s master gave her a name, Lucky 13 (or: Sister 13) as ‘Yu’ consists of ‘ten’ and ‘three’. Yufeng’s assassination attempt failed and Minister Ji also hired a kung-fu master, Iron Monk, to protect him. In the meantime, Yufeng met a young and handsome scholar, Mr. An. Yufeng fell in love with An and risked her life to save An, who was robbed by bandits. Yufeng disguised herself as a dancer and killed Minister Ji finally. At the end of the film, Yufeng leaves her swear brothers, who helped her to revenge, and goes to find Mr. An. This is an interesting film that defies the stereotypical image of traditional Chinese women who are normally portrayed as subordinates of men.

The story of Lucky 13 is popular in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China and has different film and TV versions. For example, the Hong Kong TVB produced a 20 episodes TV series of Lucky 13 in 1983. The heroine of the film, DING Lan is a very well-known actress in China. She starred in The Shaolin Temple (1982) with Jet Li and played a couple of leading roles in other martial arts films as well. (3 stars - Yuxing Zhou; May 21, 2010)