Asiapol agents Yang Ming-hsuan (Wang Yu) is in the Yokohama waterfront to intercept contraband gold being smuggled into Japan from Hong Kong by ADU, an international gang led by George Eaton. In a desperate bid to eliminate Ming-hsuan, George orders his mistress Chin-tse to poison him but got killed. Hsun-tse seeking to avenge her sister Chiu-tse and try and seduce him. Eaton next lures Ming-hsuan to another strip-tease place where he locks them up in the cellar with a planted time-bomb. The resourceful Ming-hsuan again escapes and in a savage life-and-death struggle the ruthless mobster Eaton is crushed to death.
Arguably, the greatest kung-fu film director of all time is Liu Chia-liang. Unarguably the greatest kung-fu film character of all time is Huang Fei-hung. So what do you think would happen when you put these two titanic talents together? You get one of the finest "pure" kung-fu films ever made, with nary a character getting killed, but the thrills coming a mile a minute as two pugilism schools tests each other for a full hundred minutes. Following the director’s only other Huang Fei-hung film, CHALLENGE OF THE MASTERS, Lau returns his dynamic adoptive brother, Gordon Liu Chia-hui, to the leading role, then gives the king of screen villains, Wang Lung-wei, one of his few anti-heroic roles... just in time for a stunning climax unparalleled in its adeptness and invention.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest Hong Kong musicals, this lavish movie starring Linda Lin, who won Best Actress for her performance, infuses its wispy plot with style and wit, and the results are pure pleasure.
A young fisherman (Kang Wai) is in love with his childhood friend (Elsie Tu Dih). However, the only son (Chang Pei Shan) of a town bully (Lo Wei) lusts after Tu’s beauty, and he tries all possible ways to approach her. Chang tries to bully a widow (Li Li Hua) one day, and Kang protects her from Chang. However, the just action of Chang leads to a misunderstanding. Tu suspends that Chang has an affair with Li…
Kang Wai, Elsie Tu Dih, Lo Wei, Chang Pei Shan, Li Li Hua
The Pure and The Evil begins with two teen girls who are inseparable but ends like Fatal Attraction where guttered sexuality leads to insanity. Rose and Fang were from opposite ends of the spectrum, but nevertheless were close. The refined Fang moves to America but returns years later to see her old buddy Rose who immediately takes an eye to her fiancé. Things quickly digress into erotic deteoriation as Rose's thorns begin to stick in Fang's and her fiancé’s sides.
Whenever director Chang Cheh teamed up with Five Venoms, film plots were probably decided by flipping a coin - which of the fab five will play the good or bad guys, who lives or dies and which ones will do the fight. The Daredevils was just another example of Shaw Brothers’ sure fire formula to success: Venoms + Chang Cheh = maniacal frenzy x infinity. Of note, the only venom to make it in Hollywood was Kuo Chue, who choreographed the French film Brotherhood Of The Wolf and Michelle Yeoh's The Touch.
In one of the indomitable Ivy Ling Po's (Vermillion Door) first appearances in her trademark male roles, we are treated to a tale of love, fantasy and music! It took two directors, three assistant directors, and four cinematographers to capture this incredible epic about life in the Heavenly Palace. The Jade Emperor's seventh daughter (Fang Ying) is so naughty that she is banished from heaven and sent to live among humans. There, she meets and becomes enchanted by the young village lad Dong Yong (Ling Po) and asks the God of the Earth and her other fairy sisters to lend a hand. But her meddling among humans can only go so far before the will of heaven is disturbed. How long is it before she gets caught?
Filmmaker Wong Jing produced Mercenaries From Hong Kong, his very first modern-day adventure drama. In the dramatic plot he wrote, he sends superstars Ti Lung, Chen Hui-min, Wang Lung-wei, Lo Lieh and Wang Yu on a deadly mission. The film's action sequences are all closely guided by three great kung fu choreographers, led by Tang Chia!
Ivy Ling Po tears up the screen as a jealous, murderous movie star who wants to kill her husband. There's only one thing between him and execution: his wife's loving and plucky female screenwriter...
Martial arts genre auteur Chang Cheh teams up with action stars Ti Lung and David Chiang again. Ti Lung is the "armour" of an armoured carriage taking silver to the capital. Along the way a mysterious knight (David Chiang) begins to stalk him. As Ti Lung is surrounded by various bandits, Chiang has to save his new friend and risk his own life. Later, the two happen to be involved in a love triangle with Li Ching.
Li Ching, Ti Lung, David Chiang, Ching Miao, Ku Feng, Chen Hsing
The traditional lion dance has never looked so good as in Lion VS Lion which captures the most impressive sequences of lion dancing on film. Besides being loaded with enjoyable martial arts chicanery, film historians can revel because it's also the first film that clearly demonstrates the intricacies and differences between the traditional Northern and Southern lion dancing techniques. The Five Venom alumnus and Chang Cheh discovery, Lo Meng, teams up with Liu Chia-liang protege Wang Yu, as they inadvertently turn from vagabond kung-fu school operators into anti-Ching, patriotic fighters.
Wang Yu, Chien Yuen-sheng, Wang Lung-wei, Lo Meng, Yang Pan-pan
Young People is a charming teen drama starring David Chiang and Ti Lung that harks back to an innocent age when rivalries are settled by sports and kids join clubs instead of gangs.
David Chiang, Ti Lung, Agnes Chen, Chen Kuan-tai, Irene Chen I-ling
THE KUNG-FU INSTRUCTOR is martial arts film director Sun Chung's loose homage to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo where unlike Toshiro Mifune's Sanjuro character being a snarling, bastard, drunk swordsman looking for a drink, popular actor Ti Lung's Huang Yang role, is an upright, righteous, weapon instructor looking to keep his limbs. Huang is a famous martial artist trapped into teaching kung-fu to the wrong clan while the opposing "good" clan tries to save him so he can instruct their members. Besides kung-fu comedienne Wang Yu starring in one of his few serious roles, Sun became the first Shaw Brothers' director to use a Steadicam which gives the film's action and editing style a unique brand of tension and rhythm. The pole fights are also out of this world.
