This Golden Harvest movie was released the same month as Bruce Lee's "The Big Boss". Jason Pai Piao and Chen Kuan-Tai are listed as action directors and I also spotted them in some fights.
I watched this movie once before and made notes that it was excellent. Today I watched it a second time.
My copy is a regional coded VCD. That stands for Video Compact Disk which was a short lived format between VHS or Beta tapes and DVDs. The movie cannot fit on one compact disk so it abruptly stops in the middle and you have to switch the disk. The good part is that you get true wide screen instead of the getting the side cut off. It is a rather narrow picture (top to bottom) to compensate.
It begins with everyone wants James Tin Chuen's broken sword. Some will fight for it and others offer to pay. Instead of simmering this bit of a mystery there is an expository dialog and flashback that explains the mystery but adds another question. This cycle repeats over and over again and is the only way the story moves forward. Oddly enough this lazy writing actually held my attention the first watch. I suspected though that all these little mysteries did not really add up. Even after a second view I have that suspicion but it is all too convoluted for me to be sure.
Of course in these movies it all comes down to the final fight. All the earlier fights were weapons fights and as good as could be expected for 1971. By that I mean there was good focus and power, there were long shots showing all the movement and minimal close ups and no shaky cameras, and there were up to ten or more moves before a cut in the action. The final fight, however, was not at all the best fight in the movie and it should have been. Instead it was too short and just repetitive of the earlier action. Overall, I rate this movie just a bit above average for the year and genre.
