Before reading this review, it is important to note that I am reviewing the English language dubbed version of this movie. The dubbing was very poor (as was usually the case in martial arts films of the 70s and 80s) and the soundtrack was god-awful. Additionally, the print was very scratchy and the DVD was a "cheapie" DVD sold for a buck at Walmart. So try to understand that there were many, many knocks against the film that might not be present in the original film. Thanks to thoughtless distributors, this DVD is a mess.
The worst aspect of the film must be the soundtrack. It was totally inappropriate. Sure, there were the usual way over the top sound effects for fight sequences and I am NOT talking about this--after all, this is true of the genre. Instead I am talking about the music which I assumed someone LATER pasted on the film when they dubbed it. I just can't imagine the film makers in Hong Kong using a 70s electronic sci-fi soundtrack in the original film!!! For a film set in the Chin Dynasty (the first Chinese dynasty--about 250BC), the music was just stupid.
As far as the voices, they are the typical horrid ones found in most horribly dubbed martial arts films. I recognized several of the voices from other films and none of them were particularly good or sounded the least bit like a Chinese person should sound.
The martial arts sequences were very high speed but really looked nothing like real fighting. It was more like extremely choreographed dancing--with no spontaneity and looking pretty fake.
Now for the plot. Well, it was pretty lame and involved magicians and demons and the like. My favorite silly part was a supposed demon that was actually a tall fat guy who did no martial arts. He just stood there and the actors pretended to kick and hit him again and again to no effect. These sequences bore less similarity to martial arts and looked more like Steve McQueen and his teenage friends fighting The Blob! The overall effect is silly and poor. Sadly, as bad as this film was, I have seen quite a few that are worse, and this film isn't quite silly enough to be fun to laugh at with friends. I would really like to see what this film ORIGINALLY looked like--it had to be a lot better!
