Wan fa gui zong yi Shao Lin

The title seems to present this movie as a compilation of the best Shaolin kung fu fight scenes. In Chinese the title is more like - "of all the many styles of kung fu, Shaolin is the best".

My copy has the German title page. It is a wide screen video with English dubbing.

It opens with Cliff Lok doing forms demonstrations under a waterfall. Cut to the emperor, Carter Wong gets a message about proving his legitimacy as successor to the throne. He goes to a shrine (possibly the cheapest set in movie history) with his men and they are attacked. The first fight is Carter against about eight attackers. It appears exciting but on a closer look is just Carter flailing his arms as attackers step forward with feeble and off target motions. The second fight is mostly in the dark and what could be seen was only a little better. Pai Ying and Carter go to the brothel where Doris Lung Chun-Erh is one of the girls. Pai Ying ends up carried away in a sack.

At about the thirty minute mark Cliff Lok's character enters the Shaolin temple. His fights there are the highest level. I counted over thirty moves before a cut in some of his fight sequences. Today there are techniques in film editing that can fake this but back in 1976 it took real skills to do a fight sequence like that. For about thirty minutes Cliff Lok continues with almost non-stop action.

Cliff Lok started in martial arts movies in the 1960s. His first lead was 1972 "The Roaring Lion" which I also reviewed here. I rated his fight against Sek Kin in that movie as one of the best fights ever as of 1972.

I rate this movie above average for a martial arts movie of the golden age from 1967 to 1984 and recommend it for all fans of the genre.