Os Tesouros do Dragão

This was the second "Cheap" Chinese Kung Fu movie after Fatal Flying Guillotines, previously I had seen allot of high budget modern Kung Fu movies, such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Fearless, and House of Flying Daggers, so my expectations were too high when i watched it.

The first time I watched it I was pretty disgusted and though it as the worst movie I had ever seen, however after watching it again two years latter and having watched allot more of the "Cheap" Kung Fu movies of the 70s & 80s I was allot less harsh, although I still believe it deserves no more than a 5 or 6. Here is a brief outline of the film:

The storyline is nothing original, your average story that some guy has most of his family murdered by a Santa-Claus looking Kung Fu expert, our protagonist then goes to find another Kung Fu expert (or in this case two), learns Kung Fu, gets strong than extracts revenge on the Santa-Claus look alike, in this case played by Lung Fei. The protagonist played by Wang Tao is victimized because his family hold the secret were this vast Treasure is. Almost every character talks about the treasure in the movie although ever really happens and you never see the "Treasure". The director tries to add some spic to it by having a random seductive killer ghost make an appearance midway through the film and a humorous beggar accompany the protagonist, but neither really help much. This film is Unintentonally funny due to the poor dubbing and even poorer sound effects, most notably when the Santa-Claus looking antagonist slaps to death one of his henchmen for unexplained reasons, each slap accompanied by an odd laser like noise. The Kung Fu is alright, and some of the scenes that this movie are filmed at are actually quit nice, such as the bamboo forest and waterfall scenes. In the end the dubbing and storyline prevent you from taking this film seriously, I wouldn't really recommend it to any one unless you want to laugh at its poor production, but there have been allot worse.

ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES was produced when comedy was firmly embraced by the Chinese martial arts audiences. This KF movie however, keeps the comedy elements to a minimum; the only laughs occur revolving one single character (here as a elderly KF drunk). I'm sure you know the stereotype I am referring to. ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES was actually shot and produced in Taiwan starring HK stars like Wong Dao, Meng Fei, (typecast as the baddie again), and Alan Choi. Due to the poor dubbing this is one hard to follow KF flick. With subs, it would be easier to following the intrigue. My big major problem with this movie, however, was the constant over-cranking to the fights scenes. It was not just a couple scenes which were sped up, pretty much the whole movie was that way. This film was released in 1981, which was the beginning of the end; by 1985 the KF scene was dead. During this downward spiral, independent studios were making poor creative decisions and lower budget movies really hurt the industry. Lower and lower budgets meant recycling of footage, music, and ideas. The Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest studios frowned upon the idea of overcranking the fight footage in their films. But there are a lot of indy companies did it (an some Taiwan ones did it a lot too). On the plus sides, ADVENTURES FOR IMPERIAL TREASURES does feature some nice sets design and coloful Taiwan photography. Its hard to appreciates the fights though cuz everything is so rushed...