This is not your typical Shaw Brothers film. While it has a lot of the same old elements, it is quite dripping wet with fight scenes!
It’s all about our main guy Tang Jen Chieh, played by Ting Li. Tang Jen Chieh is pretty much unbeatable with a pair of knives (often referred to as swords). In this gangster film, he is the son of the head of his gang, with an older brother.
A plan is formulated to take out their rivals, and executed perfectly. One problem is the retaliation where the men of the rival plan come back and ends with them killing Tang’s father.
After a dirty bloodbath of dead bodies, the gang needs a fall out guy, with some of the senior members raising their hands eventually Tang raises his and decides to move away for a year, with his older brother in charge. A year later he is attacked while hiding (which leads to another big fight scene) before returning home to find out things have changed, of course he is attacked leading yet another epic fight scene.
He learns that his brother has been set up and is now and alcoholic, and the gang’s accountant has taken over. Even his beloved girlfriend has been put into prostitution. So naturally, Tang must make things right – by slashing as many midsections and necks as possible!
Sucks to be Tang…
So Tang gets home and it seems that he is nearly killed, his girlfriend commits suicide and his entire life is being taken from him – but that’s whats awesome about this film! Tang gets to the point where has virtually nothing to lose, so yes, it all leads to more kick ass fight scenes.
What is interesting also is ‘The Rambler’, a friend of the gang who it turns out killed his father, but now wants to help Tang out. This naturally forms a shaky alliance and leaves you guessing just a bit. It seems the movie leads up to their final climactic battle, which without spoiling things, also ends in classic Shaw Brothers style.
Martial Arts and Action
Every 5 or ten minutes we see a massive fight with roughly 20 – 50 people being taken out by our man Tang. He has a nice big pair of knives and he goes out slashing up his enemies in a very fast and animated fashion. Wthis high level of movement gives the movie an extremely lively pace with the action.
The problem is things can be a little too lively, with techniques and fights looking a little sloppy and not giving it an appearance of being not very authentic. But at the end of the day, slash someones neck with a knife and they will die, so you can’t really take too much away from it.
The first half of the film is basically all fights, with a lot being present in the second half… just not as much. It made me very happy to see 🙂
This film is all about the action, and although it’s not the neatest effort, its still cool and involved a shite-load of knife fighting. All of this is thrown in with a few axes and other weapons – not to mention a LOT of red paint. Check it out but don’ take it too seriously.
