mushroomginseng

I came across this movie on Youtube and thought I would do a quick review here, With a title like WITTY HAND, WITTY SWORD, one would think this is a Kung FU comedy. But, actually this Taiwan made production has a dead serious tone. WITTY SWORD stars Tien Peng and Pearl Cheong who must join forces to overcome the tyrannical regime that did their characters wrong. I wont go into the plot too much because it is similar plot you've seen before in action cinema. What really took me by surprise, was the big budget production with production values similar to a Shaw Brothers movie. Speaking of the Shaw studios, this movie also has a major role for Shaw Brothers superstar, the great David Chiang. In this movie, he portrays Tien Peng's brother and also gets to kick a lot of ass! The film is full of well done sword fights scenes, and visually speaking, WITTY SWORD is a masterpiece!

THE DEVILS TREASURE is a real departure for Golden Harvest productions. It is not really a true wuxia styled martial arts film. Plotwise, it is more of a gangland thriller. The Protagonist (Taiwan actor Chun Hsiang Ko) is a boat captain and diver who is recruited bby the mob to do a job, and dive to the bottom of the ocean to recover treasure. But when they find the treasure, things go horribly wrong. Chun's character makes off the Treasure and hides out in Korea with his wife (Nora Maio) and kid. Eventually the gangsters catch up to him and thats where the fun and intrigue begin. Though not really a martial arts movie, there are a good number of fight scenes there in. The action and fight scenes are really well done (Sammo Hung did some of the fight scenes). THE DEVILS TREASURE was really filmed in Korea and the movie has some beautiful cinematograaphy. And lots of boat chase scenes. Some of the evil Characters have Japanese Yakuza names. Lots of familiar faces in it as well...

ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES was produced when comedy was firmly embraced by the Chinese martial arts audiences. This KF movie however, keeps the comedy elements to a minimum; the only laughs occur revolving one single character (here as a elderly KF drunk). I'm sure you know the stereotype I am referring to. ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES was actually shot and produced in Taiwan starring HK stars like Wong Dao, Meng Fei, (typecast as the baddie again), and Alan Choi. Due to the poor dubbing this is one hard to follow KF flick. With subs, it would be easier to following the intrigue. My big major problem with this movie, however, was the constant over-cranking to the fights scenes. It was not just a couple scenes which were sped up, pretty much the whole movie was that way. This film was released in 1981, which was the beginning of the end; by 1985 the KF scene was dead. During this downward spiral, independent studios were making poor creative decisions and lower budget movies really hurt the industry. Lower and lower budgets meant recycling of footage, music, and ideas. The Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest studios frowned upon the idea of overcranking the fight footage in their films. But there are a lot of indy companies did it (an some Taiwan ones did it a lot too). On the plus sides, ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES does feature some nice sets design and coloful Taiwan photography. Its hard to appreciates the fights though cuz everything is so rushed...