It is truly a great film and has a lot of action, I can’t say that it’s entirely original or that it stands out far from many of the others but it is great fun to watch and some amazing fight scenes.
Two men end up having a monk live with them and they go into town and seek medicine and fall for a beautiful woman, meanwhile the evil general of the Manchu army searches to find the Abbot monk and anyone who isn’t on his side shall be destroyed. The two men learn the 18 Buddha Palm style from the Shaolin monk and they go after the Manchu army and have a great battle with the general Wong Wu Ti.
The movie was chocked full of the comedy bits kung-fu was famous for in the late 70’s. The characters are amazing and the long white haired general is very close compared to the Pai-Mai types made popular in Shaw Bros. films.
The fights are funny at times, especially when the guys are pretending to use the Budha palms. The final fight between Tung Wai and Hung Sze Ma is one of my faves, it is a super long fight too.
The production was great. C.H. Wong produced it and he’s had some good films even though hes usually more on the technical side of the film making process. Although its the average sloppy Hong Kong film at times, editor Ting Hung Kuo did a wonderful job piecing it together. The music was very fitting by Mao Shan Huang but it didn’t jump out and take control as many of the martial arts film scores do. As far as sound recording goes, Yung Fang Wang might’ve went a bit over the top with his exaggerated sounds for hits and yells.
Cinematography and Direction was amazing, stood out and caught my attention. Joe Cheung directed the film Under the alias Yang Ching Chen and I loved so many of these shots. Martial Arts films were Asia’s westerns and this film had such a spaghetti western feel to it. Beautiful shots using the sun to capture and shadow the wonderful choreographed moves from Tung Wai and Yuen Jen. There are some beautiful long shots and Joe did such a wonderful job along with Cheung Sai Gwan.
This film is a great kung fu classic, I wish it would get remastered and put on blue ray, but seeing as how no one knows it, I guess the RZA, ground-zero is the best we can hope for. Its a transfer from VHS and even has about a 30 second gap in it. It runs around 1:25 and can also be found under the titles 18 deadly Strikes.
If you like martial arts this is a great film, I only walk away wondering one thing… Why does the boss on these movies make 500 of his men fight and get their butt whipped before he stands in…He’s the best one there why doesn’t he fight first and be done…Oh well funny thought.
