The Movie:

Also known as Palace Carnage, 1978's Flying Guillotine Part II is a mess of a movie, a fact that surely wasn't helped by the fact that it had at least two directors working on it at different times once Ho Meng-Hua, the director of the original 1975 film Flying Guillotine decided he didn't want anything to do with a sequel. On top of that, various cast members from the original weren't too keen on reprising their roles, or just happened to completely vanish off the face of the Earth before cameras started rolling. Never ones to look a sure thing in the eye, the producers at Shaw Brothers got how Cheng Kang and then Hua Shan to step in and fill Ho Meng-Hua's rather large shoes, and the results are…. Ridiculous, and ridiculously entertaining.

The story begins when a few surviving members of the Han clan do their best to stand up to Emperor Y...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Lau Kar-Leung, 1981's Martial Club is a later-era martial arts entry from Shaw Brothers that once again teams the director with Gordon Liu, who was still very much a box office draw, after they'd previously worked together on Challenge Of The Masters, Executioners From Shaolin and Heroes Of the East.

As it was in Challenge Of The Masters, Liu once again plays Wong Fei Hung. In Canton, his father, Wong Kei Ying (Ku Feng), runs a martial arts school. He and his students get along just fine with the Chan School, also a martial arts academy and everything seems to be calm, peaceful and sensible. The members of the Lu School, however, have different ideas in mind. They've got a bone to pick with Wong Kei Ying and come up with various schemes to knock him down a few pegs and hopefully put an end to the success of his scho...Read the entire review

The Movie:

From director Sun Chung, the same man who gave us Big Bad Sis, The Sexy Killer and City War comes this grim martial arts/horror film, Human Lanterns, also known as Human Skin Lanterns.

The film follows the rivalry between two men, Tan Fu (Chen Kuan-tai) and Lung (Lau Wing), who are competitive on pretty much any level they can be. They bicker over money, prestige, and fighting skills and lust after the same women. When it comes time for the local lantern festival, an important local event that carries with it some sizeable ego boosting prestige and notoriety, Lung decides that he's going to beat Tan Fu for good by enlisting the aid of his former rival now turned lantern maker, Chun Fang (Lo Lieh), widely regarded as the best lantern maker around.

This may seem like a great idea initially, but when the local stock of p...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Mar Lo for the Shaw Brothers in 1979, Monkey Kung Fu (also known as Stroke Of Death) stars Siu-Tung Ching as a man named Wei Chung who, while in prison, is gifted part of a mysterious wooden totem by an aged, cyclopean kung-fu master named Ma Siu Tien who is essentially on death row. Chung decides to break out of prison and to find the other part of the totem so that he can ascertain its purpose and what it could possibly mean to him. Making things difficult, however, is the fact that Chung is chained to fellow prisoner Zhou (Hau Chiu-Sing), which makes their escape a bit tricky.

Regardless, they make it out of prison only to find themselves pursued by members of a violent gang of martial artists out to retrieve the totem for themselves. What Chung eventually figures out is that the totem is a key to unlocking the old man's secret fight...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Lau Kar Leung, the man who brought you The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin and Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, 1978's Shaolin Mantis doesn't get off to the fastest start you've ever seen. In fact, by martial arts movie standards it could be considered fairly slow as its focus isn't on fight scenes (though there are a few) but on story development. It builds to a very satisfying conclusion, however, and proves to be a pretty interesting movie.

The plot of this period film concerns Wei Fung (David Chiang), a student who is hired by the Emperor to make nice with the Tien Clan and to prove that they're working hand in hand with the Ming loyalists in hopes of taking down the Ching Dynasty. Wei's under quite a bit of pressure to make sure he gets everything right for the Emperor, because the lives of his family members hang in the balance. Being a...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by the mighty Chang Cheh and released by Shaw Brothers studios late in the kung-fu boom in 1980, The Flag Of Iron (also released domestically as The Spearman of Death) details the exploits of a clan of fighters known as Iron Flag. The people of their town admire them for being the good men that they are, using their fighting skills to right wrongs and stand against oppressors. When the clan's chief learns of a plan by a rival to take them out, he decides they should strike first and so they attack the rival clan's school.

Things are going just fine for the good guys until Iron Flag member Chow Feng (Lu Feng) hires an assassin known as 'The Man In White' (Lung Tien-Hsiang) to help them out. When the clan leader winds up dead, the assassin is assumed to have done the deed. Lo Hsin (Philip Kwok) intends to look into things but winds up taking...Read the entire review

The Movie:

One of the most entertaining kung-fu movies that the world famous Shaw Brothers cranked out in the early eighties is Legendary Weapons Of China, directed by and starring Chia-Liang Liu. The movie revolves around Lei Kung (played by Chia-Liang Liu himself), a member of the Yi Ho Society who has been sent to the province of Yunnan where he winds up disappearing after breaking up his school to protect his students from the dangers of the changing martial arts scene.

Master Li Lin-ying isn't happy at all with Lui Kung's disappearance and so he calls in three of his finest fighters, a trio of assassins named Lei Ying (Chia Yung Liu), Tieh Hau (Hsiao Hou) and Ti Tan (Chia Hui Liu, better known on western shores as the instantly Gordon Liu!). These three deadly martial artists see Lei Kung as a traitor and are tasked with finding him and putting him out of busin...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Shaw Brothers superstar director Chang Cheh in 1975, Disciples Of Shaolin tells the story of a young man named Kuan Fung Yi (Alexander Fu-Sheng). Unemployed but skilled in the martial arts, his brother Wang Hon (Chi Kuan-Chun) gets him a job at one of the local textile mills. Almost immediately, Kuan butts heads with the manager of the mill, the older man having no qualms whatsoever about degrading the new recruit or any of his other employees, or flaunting the fact that he makes more money than they do.

Kuan is cocky and self-assured, humility isn't a strong point, but when some of the employees of a rival text mill show up and cause problems, he gets to strut his stuff and prove his skills as a fighter. This wins him favor with employers and employees alike, Kuan decides to teach many of his co-workers some self-defense skills and as he does...Read the entire review