Black Belt

"The Black Belt" is not some syrupy, candy colored Shaw Bros. fare; what we have here is a fairly raw and gritty film about the criminal underworld of human traffiking. Some really fast and brutal fight scenes highlight this tale of a lone cop, seeking revenge on the scum that murdered his mother, and who later kidnap his sweet, blind sister, and attempt to enslave her in their prostitution racket. This is a VERY obscure movie, and just about impossible to find on video. As such, the quality of the print is faded and cropped from it's widescreen image, down to a 4x3 frame. This one doesn't even have an English dub, most likely because it was never released commercially in the West. As far as the Kung Fu genre goes, "Black Belt" is a solid 70's gem, complete with all the music and clothing styles that we love, with a sense of realism that is lacking in a lot of the bigger budget movies from Shaw Bros, with the fake sets and perfect clothing and artificial lighting. Recommended for fans of obscure Kung Fu action flicks.

The movie starts in a karate school with some demonstrations and fights. The story turns to a guy and his gang who seem to be in business procuring virgins for brothels. The boss goes out for revenge on a guy who beat up a friend and postpones the revenge for some murder and rape. Pai Ying enters as the son of the dead woman and brother of the blind rape victim. He is a former police man, fired for rashness, a common personality defect in these movies. The bad guy feels safe that the blind girl doesn't know what he looks like but fate steps in. Out of all the restaurants in Hong Kong the rapist ends up in the same one as the victim and she recognizes his voice. It's a small world, no?

The original title of this movie is "Hei dai chou qiu" which translates to "and on behalf of pumping the ball". Obviously. much is lost in that translation. The movie poster is totally misleading. There is no "karate tigress" in the movie as well as the other people pictured. I also suspect the karate school scene was added to make money off the 1970s martial arts craze in America. Despite the totally fake packaging the fights were good enough.