Gui shi shen cha

I have this Golden Harvest production from Taiwan. It's listed as crime genre and released in 1974. I don't recognize any of the actor's names but some faces are familiar. It opens with a woman in bed screaming in her sleep. People force entry. A crumbled note on the floor seems to be important. Next is an abrupt cut to two guys hunting a rabbit. Their gunshot draws the attention of four other men who attack them and abduct the hunter's son. He goes to find his son and soon ends in a creek with a dagger in his belly.

A lot happens in the opening minutes and it's hard to follow. Though I did watch the movie I wonder if I am even qualified to review it because I never really got the gist of the story. With that disclaimer, I will post my review. The movie hardly held my attention so I consider it below average and cannot recommend it.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as wide screen with dual Chinese and English subtitles. This format usually indicates a laser disk as the original source. I am a hard core fan of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984. I acquired this movie hoping to see a few good fight scenes. More specifically, it was the female lead, Han Hsiang-Chin, who I remembered from other martial arts movies in the early 1970s. At about 19 minutes there is a brief exchange of blows that minimally qualifies as a fight. I still haven't found anything that qualifies as a story or plot.

I will add only one more comment about the fights. At about 30 minutes there was a poorly coordinated fight sequence involving a man with a knife attacking and unarmed man. Realistically the defender in this situation cannot simply do one simple move and then stop and wait for the attacker's next move. The defense must be relentless move after move until the attacker is disarmed and restrained or otherwise incapacitated. What I saw was the defender waiting and reacting.