Chinese female action icon Cheng Pei Pei is famous for her Shaw Brothers films and her break-out feature was "Come Drink With me" and its sequel "Golden Swallow". The former is probably one of the greatest Chinese adventure films of the 60s and 70s.
So it was kind of surprising to see her in a Golden Harvest film. Maybe her Shaw contract had run out at this time. Anyways, Lo Wei directed this. He also directed Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury and he's obviously trying to strike similar gold here. In fact there are many plot elements lifted directly from FoF and Cheng Pei Pei even does a few Bruce-isms. Very strange. However she's not Bruce Lee and so isn't quite able to keep the narrative energy afloat. Actually much of Lo Wei's direction is pretty boring. I actually like Lo Wei's earlier Shaw productions a good bit, but at Golden Harvest, for whatever reason, his direction just seems lackluster. Bruce Lee could save an industrial safety film. If you've seen his screen test for Green Hornet you can see how intense he was even when not acting.
I love Cheng Pei Pei but against so much inertia even she couldn't save this from being non-essential. On the up side, she has some ferocious hand-to-hand fights. That was unique to see because she's largely known as a swordswoman and I'd never seen her do weaponless kung-fu before. Again, she's no Bruce, but she has a certain intensity (at least during the fight scenes) which elevate just those scenes.
Oh yeah, the plot is basically this: Cheng Pei Pei and her friends pretend to be be relatives to an official, but in reality they are revolutionaries trying to save their leader from captivity. The Chinese officials are also in cahoots with the Japanese, so there's a big Fist of Fury connection right there. My recommendation is to fast forward through the talky bits and just watch the scenes where Cheng Pei Pei kicks everybody's ass all over the place. Acting-wise this is definitely one of her lesser roles. Oh yeah, she fights the action choreographer of the film too, just as Bruce did in FoF.
