Payment in Blood

HK filmdirector Kuei Chi-Hung was a sort of Chinese Lucio Fulci, and this gangster movie is more an Horror, even if not about Supernatural, than a Kung-Fu actioner. Late HK superstar Yueh Hua (aka Clifford Ngok) is highly effective as the everyman pushed to the extreme by a Triad gang who wants to eliminate him, since he's the only witness of a brutal homicide they did. Dark photography and camerawork are excellents, expecially in the scene they fight inside an elevator and in the terrible home-invasion by cobras. Action is more realistic than usual and the pessimistic tone of the whole thing adds an unsane charme to this movie so different from usual Shaw Bros' features. Kung-Fu movie vets Chan Shen (King Boxer/Five fingers of death) and Chiang Tao (a tough guy you can see everywhere, from the masterpieces directed by Chang Cheh and Liu Chia liang, to the Bruceploitationers with Bruce Le or Dragon Lee), adds their usual effectiveness. All in all a gruesome, unrelenting Noir that mirrored the same atmosphere of The Delinquent/Streetgangs of Hong Kong, that Kuei Chi Hung co-directed alongwith Chang Cheh in the same year, but this Payment in blood marks a first step into the territory of gore and splatter that Hung will exploit later in bloody horrors like The Boxer's Omen.