General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Bastard

The Bastard (小雜種; also known as Xiao za zhong, Nobody's Son, and Little Hero) is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts drama directed by Chor Yuen for the Shaw Brothers studio, starring Tsung Hua and Lily Li.¹^•² The film follows a nameless orphan raised by a kung fu master who leaves his mountain temple to find his parents, only to discover that his father is a powerful and feared man who wants him for something other than family.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title	小雜種 (Xiao za zhong); English titles include The Bastard, Nobody's Son, and Little Hero¹^•³
Director and writer	Chor Yuen (楚原), screenplay by Chiu Kang-Chien (邱剛健)²
Studio and format	Shaw Brothers, Mandarin-language color film, 102 minutes, 2.35:1 aspect ratio¹
Release	Hong Kong theatrical run 2–8 June 1973; some databases list 6 February 1973³^•⁴
Box office	HK$684,731, ranking 53rd among Hong Kong films for 1973³
Leads	Tsung Hua as Little Bastard, Lily Li as the beggar girl Hsiao Yi²
Action choreography	Yuen Woo-Ping and his brother Yuen Cheung-Yan⁵

Spoilers

Story

The hero, called only Little Bastard, was abandoned as an infant on temple steps and raised there by a kung fu master, who trains him in the martial arts and little else.⁵ When he completes his training, the master sends him down the mountain to find his parents, his only clue being the place where he was found.⁵^•⁶

On the road he saves a beggar girl, Hsiao Yi, from a gang of villains, and the two become friends and traveling companions.² Through her he learns how the world works, and while observing events at a local brothel he is recognized as the second son of Gu Cheng Bo, a wealthy local baron.⁷ The Gu family's first son sits in prison for the murder of an official, and the family sees in the innocent newcomer a son they can seduce with wealth in order to free the other.⁷ Villains who notice his resemblance to the jailed son plot to make him a scapegoat for murder.⁸

The story turns dark when Hsiao Yi is murdered by Gu's gang. The disillusioned Little Bastard then unleashes his full martial arts ability on his father's household in a prolonged combat sequence that ranges through the family home and destroys it thoroughly.⁹

Production and style

Chor Yuen signed with Shaw Brothers in 1971 and was better known for visually rich dramas and wuxia (Chinese martial-arts fiction/film genre with heroic swordsmen) adaptations than for straight kung fu pictures.⁷^•¹⁰ A thesis study of the studio's output describes The Bastard as arguably the closest thing in his filmography to a conventional kung fu movie in the masculinist mode, made alongside his 1973 action film The Villains.⁹

A drama first, an action film second. Reviewers consistently note that the film opens with a brief, wuxia-tinged fight but is not an action-heavy film; it plays closer to a comedy-drama for most of its running time, with action arriving in short bursts that serve the story.⁵^•⁷ The choreography by the Yuen brothers favors rough hand-to-hand combat and the destruction of large amounts of wooden furniture, a style one critic reads as an early step toward the stunt-focused work Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung would perfect in the 1980s.⁵ The finale departs from the film's earlier restraint with a much larger showdown.⁷

The film's tone is unusually bleak for the genre. One review describes it as a tale of innocence abused, deceived, and exploited, whose message is not that goodness overpowers evil but a statement about the dark powers allowed to roam within wealth.⁷ Another critic praises Lily Li's performance as the film's scene-stealer and highlights the developing relationship between the two leads as its real highlight.⁴

Reception

Contemporary and retrospective ratings are moderate. The film scores 6.6 on IMDb and 6.5 on TMDb, while the Chinese database 1905.com lists 7.5 out of 10.¹¹^•² Retrospective reviews range from a two-and-a-half-star assessment that finds the elements never fully gel, to an enthusiastic appraisal calling it a drama classic of unexpected layered proportions and one of the finest films of any genre Chor Yuen attempted.⁵^•⁷ Common criticisms include a corny soft-focus love scene and a predictable climax.⁴

Other films titled The Bastard

The title has been used by several unrelated films. A 1978 American television miniseries The Bastard, directed by Lee H. Katzin and running about 3 hours 20 minutes, adapts John Jakes's novel about a French duke's illegitimate son, played by Andrew Stevens, who flees to the American Colonies and joins the Revolution as Philip Kent; the cast includes Kim Cattrall and Tom Bosley as Benjamin Franklin.¹² Japanese director Seijun Suzuki made The Bastard (Akutarō, 1963) for Nikkatsu, a drama about a rebellious son of a Taisho-era noble family, based on an autobiographical novel by Tōgo Imura.¹³ A 1968 Italian-German-French co-production titled The Bastard, directed by Duccio Tessari, stars Giuliano Gemma, Claudine Auger, and Rita Hayworth.¹⁴ The 1973 Shaw Brothers film is the subject of this article.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Martial arts films › Released 1943 to 1985

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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