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Vengeance!
Movie

Vengeance!

1970 • Unknown

Woke Score
1.2
out of 10

Plot

A violent martial artist is bent on avenging his older brother, who was killed by a cabal of four wicked businessmen and a cheating wife.

Overall Series Review

Vengeance! is a classic 1970 Shaw Brothers martial arts film set in 1920s or 1930s China. The plot follows a man seeking brutal revenge for the murder of his older brother, who was killed by a triad boss due to an affair involving the brother's wife. The narrative is a straightforward, nihilistic tale of personal honor, family vendetta, and violent retribution against criminal corruption. The film is entirely focused on traditional themes of loyalty, betrayal, and a pursuit of justice outside of a failed legal system. The conflict and character motivations are completely divorced from modern political or social ideology, centering instead on classic dramatic and moral principles. All main characters are Chinese, and the moral framework is rooted in personal, rather than systemic, injustice. The film’s focus is pure action and the personal cost of vengeance.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The film is a Hong Kong production set in China, featuring all Chinese characters, and the conflict is entirely driven by crime, personal betrayal, and family honor. The plot does not use race, immutable characteristics, or intersectional hierarchy to assign moral value. Characters are judged solely by their actions and their connection to the central code of vengeance. There is no concept of 'whiteness' to vilify or forced diversity to insert.

Oikophobia1/10

The film focuses on a corrupt local criminal and political structure—warlords and triads—in a Chinese city in the 1920s/30s. This is a critique of a failed social order within its own cultural context, not hostility toward Western civilization, one's home, or ancestors. The film respects the concept of family and personal justice, which are core cultural institutions.

Feminism2/10

The inciting incident is the adulterous behavior of the older brother's wife/girlfriend, who is portrayed as a source of corruption and death. The primary female characters are either a source of betrayal or an assistant/victim, not a 'Girl Boss' or a 'Mary Sue.' The male lead is defined by his protective masculinity and singular, lethal mission of vengeance, which celebrates a highly assertive masculine role. The score is only slightly above the absolute minimum because a woman's infidelity is the original trigger for the male hero's bloody mission.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative centers entirely on a heterosexual betrayal (adultery) and a quest for family vengeance. There is no presence of alternative sexualities, gender ideology, or deconstruction of the nuclear family unit. Traditional male-female pairing and a focus on blood relation (brotherly bond) are the normative structures within the story.

Anti-Theism1/10

The film is a crime/martial arts picture set in China and does not engage in any critique or commentary on Western religion, specifically Christianity. The moral code of the film, though violent and nihilistic, is driven by an objective, transcendent sense of honor and justice (vengeance for family) that acknowledges a higher moral law than the local corrupt power structure. Faith is not a plot point, but there is no hostility toward it.