Odaegwanmun

this film is packed with memorable characters such as priest wu kuo, the guy with the baby, that evil guy with the moustache and who could forget the invisible thief.

this film has such a complex and tear jerking plot that it will leave you feeling saddened and slightly violated although it will take a couple of viewings to fully understand the true complexity and cinematographic artistry at work here.

this is really a film to show your grandchildren as you remember back to simpler times when people would care for a random stranger who wandered into town all battered and bloodied and noble warriors were so unafraid of their own weaknesses that they would paint them onto their own bodies this truly is a film for the ages

Why do an almost 80's film in 60's technology. A plot with not too many film splice cuts.

The movie starts with the pomp and circumstance of a new leader taking over the clan. He is surrounded by many men with silver body paint. Casanova Wong wants to kill him for revenge. Unfortunately he could not find a baby sitter and carries his son around for the first half of the movie. The story takes off on a tangent with the introduction of the Invisible Thief. He steals weapons from fighters then sells them back. He also has powers of telekinesis. The next plot complication is that the bad guy wants some papers.

I gave up trying to follow the story by about 40 minutes. In German this movie translates as "The Eagle with the Silver Talon" and in original Korean it was titled "The Five Barriers". The "Rivals of the Silver Fox" title seems to be a VHS bait to trick the renter that Hwang Jang-Lee is in the movie.

The dud story and the cardboard cut-out characters leave only the fight sequences to justify spending 86 minutes staring at this. I can happily say the fights are competent. Overall this is just an average movie from a year when hundreds of these average movies were made. For quality, it is VHS size and resolution with a bit of pan and scan and the voices are dubbed English but not by the "A team" of voices. I can recommend it only for hard core fans of the genre.

The only thing worthy of comment regarding this movie is the action director Chan Siu-Pang. I've watched thousands of these movies and his name never came to my attention. He has 59 films to his credit as action director, starting his career in 1960 shoulder to shoulder with the great Simon Yuen. He also has 94 actor credits mostly as an extra until the late 1970s. I found at least 12 movies listed under his name that I have never even heard of so I will be searching for them.