Chan Sing was one of the original "real deal" kung fu movie stars in that he had a black belt in the karate style Goju-Ryu. In his early films he brought the sai, a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon to the screen. Born in Thailand and looking a bit dark and with a moustache he made a perfect villain in his early Shaw Brothers movies. In my opinion this movie is one of his best. Unfortunately the best copy I ever came across was a digital file made from a VHS tape dubbed in English. The picture is sharp enough to watch on a modern wide screen television but it is not wide screen. I would love to find a laser disk version but none seem to have made it out of Hong Kong. The story starts with a creative twist on the old revenge plot. Chan Sing kills a man and his son swears revenge. Instead of getting twenty years older and meanwhile the kid becomes a martial arts master and then comes back to kill him, Chan Sing takes the revengeful son under his wing to teach him martial arts. I'm thinking his motive is that in twenty years they will have bonded and then the kid will not want to kill him for revenge – problem solved. Later he accepts an unusual murder contract in that politics and patriotism become part of the story. Then he stops a girl from being taken to forced prostitution by fighting and paying her contract. A challenger appears and Chan Sing feels he is too young so the two kids battle. His student loses but survives. Lo Lieh is behind this. After the kid heals up they fight again as Chan Sing and Lo Lieh watch. This time Chan Sing's student wins. Next Lo Lieh fights Chan Sing and I was disappointed with this fight. Lo Lieh is also one of the first – if not the very first – original "real deal" kung fu movie stars. He learned mostly karate in his teen years in Indonesia. This could have been a unique karateka versus karateka fight but it was not choreographed that way. I guess they just never thought of it. Instead, Lo Lieh fights without honor and they both live to fight another day. On the way to the brothel, Got Siui-Bo gets his cameo. I call him respectfully the fat man of martial arts movies. He made 284 movies from 1964 to 1996 and with his body habitus he only suited the role of the fat guy. Despite that limitation he added true emotion from grief to comedy to many of his performances and often stole the scene in brief appearances. Chan Sing then finds the woman he freed from the brothel yet working at the brothel. The real treat at the brothel is Doris Lung Chung- Erh, whom I lovingly named Crazy Doris. Check out her personal life and you might agree with me. They fight, using stunt doubles only for the acrobatics. This sets up the fight for Chan Sing versus Hwang Jang-Lee. Chan Sing is defeated but lives and the kid has his climactic moment where he decides not to revenge. The focus shifts to the kid fighting everyone starting with Crazy Doris and company. Of course, the good guys win and bad guys lose.
