Cantonese: Sap yi gum pai
Mandarin: Shi er jin pai
English: Twelve Gold Medallions

During the war precipitated by a Tartar invasion, patriotic swordsman Miao Lung (Yueh Hua) sets about eliminating a series of messengers carrying twelve imperial decrees fashioned in the form of golden medallions. With these edicts, traitorous Prime Minister Qin Hui hopes to stop General Yao Fei and his supporters from continuing to resist the Tartar advance. Miao has successfully intercepted and killed three of the men thus far but he now faces a dilemma. His former master, Hua Shan clan leader Jin Yantang (Ching Miao), has been given the responsibility of seeing that the medallions are delivered, which means that the two are now mortal enemies. Complicating matters further is the fact that Jin's daughter, Jin Suo (Chin Ping), is Miao's intended. The elder Jin poisons his daughter's relationship with Miao but the girl shares the swordsman's view of her father's actions and works to undermine him. Jin concocts and executes some elaborate deceptions to try and sneak the medallions past Miao and some other loyal swordsmen. Although these ultimately fail, Jin remains a grave threat and the only person in the region powerful enough to defeat him is Green Bamboo Cane Master Meng Ta-pei (Ku Wen-chung) but the elderly hermit refuses to get involved in the conflict.

Set during the Sung Dynasty, this Shaw Brothers production gets off to a roaring start and offers periodic bursts of swordplay and kung fu (co-choreographed by Sammo Hung Kam-po, in one of his very first outings as an action director), with more wire-enhanced stunts than were generally seen at this time. The film does not fare quite as well with its dramatics, however. The strained relationship between Miao and Suo is not very convincingly depicted, as the former never really even tries to explain the reasons behind his actions and the girl's misinterpretation of them. Also, some more could have been made of Suo's decision to betray her father, the magnitude of which only really registers during the climax. That said, genre fans will still find much to engage them here, including not one but two duels at the local inn. Trivia note: the movie's writer/director, Cheng Kang/Ching Kong (KIDNAP), is the father of Tony Ching Siu-tung who, of course, went on to choreograph and/or direct more than his fair share of high flying period martial arts fantasies. Ku Feng, Fan Mui-sang, James Tien Chun are among the men Miao faces during the course of the picture. THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS received "Honorable Mention for Dramatic Feature" at the 1971 Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.

THE TWELVE GOLD MEDALLIONS is available at Poker Industries.