A nominal sequel to King Hu's Come Drink with Me, Golden Swallow takes its title from the heroine of Hu's film but, in line with director Zhang Che's proclivity for male-centered stories, reorients the plot around a tormented wandering swordsman. Although popular wuxia star Zheng Peipei reprised her role as Golden Swallow, the film's true protagonist is Silver Roc, the brooding knight portrayed by Zhang stalwart Jimmy Wang Yu. A prototype for the conflicted male antiheroes that would dominate virtually all of Zhang's subsequent films, Silver Roc is a psychologically complex figure, drawn to violence and driven by a death wish while at the same time possessed of a poetic sensibility and powerful romantic yearnings. Hu's exposition of Daoist and Confucian mores is here replaced by the advocacy of yang gang, a masculine code of honor that Zhang expresses through violent action. Both directors' approaches would prove equally influential on the Hong Kong action cinema.