This story was taken from "The Water Margin". It is a Chinese novel attributed to Shi Nai'an that is considered one of the four great classical Chinses novels. The story of Lin Chong is in chapters 3-7. The Shaw Brothers version is rather stripped down but still works. For fans of this genre I recommend the 1993 movie "All Men Are Brothers - Blood of the Leopard" starring Tony Leung Ka-Fai as Lin Chong and Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong as the monk.
Father and son action directors, Bruce Leung and his dad, created the fight sequences here and I wish I was there for that. Yeuh Hua has my respect as he is an actor and not a martial artist because he has certainly been practicing. Some of his fight sequences had 16 moves without a cut but on the other hand some of the strikes were about a meter off.
Fan Mei-Sheng seemed to be made for the role of the monk and he gloried in it. His character contrasts the lead in that he never overthinks and solves most of his problems with a quick fight. I totally enjoyed every moment he was on the screen in this movies, especially his fights.
Overall it's hard to like a movie so depressing. The fights were good but there should have been more. Also there was nothing special about the fights other than competence. The problem is it's hard to enjoy a movie so depressing. In the novel all these tragic events lead the hero to joining the 108 heroes of the swamp. There he does heroic things. That upswing is just added as a sentence to the end of this movie.
