Secret Rivals

This was one of the first ever Karate films ive seen and i got it from a video shop about 8 years ago. The film is dubded like most karate films of that time. The plot is good and has a man avenging the death of his family and the other is the son of a genaral and they are both after the same man the notorious "SILVER FOX" hes one of the best fighters around. Both the men have to enter a fighting tournement to get near him and the fights are brilliantly staged plus the two men have to fight the emperors guards who get in the way through the film. At times there are funny parts to the film. In the end the two main leads both like the same girl but she only likes one of them they try to fight each other twice in the film to see which one of them is best but both times they get interupted and then they team up together to take on the mighty "SILVER FOX". This is a good film for karate fans but its a fairly rare film and it would be very hard to get your hands on it.

I had high hopes for this film, especially after watching the vastly superior sequel: Secret Rivals II and had read a lot of good reviews here and elsewhere. Unfortunately, although I think many people disagree with me about this, it was a huge let-down and had little appeal what-so-ever, except for some unintentional hilarious bad English dubbing. The story, although generally non-essential to kung fu-movies of the era, was excruciating at times, with prolonged scenes about some side-plot involving a mutual love interest of our heroes, and the rest isn't much better. This wouldn't have mattered at all if we were treated with a lot of fighting in between the tedious story telling, but WE'RE NOT! I'm a huge fan of Jon Liu and especially Hwang Jang Lee, but they are never allowed to show off their skills properly since they hardly get to fight.

The choreography is really sloppy in the first half of the movie, but doesn't improve nearly as much as I had hoped even for the end fight, which is over really fast. I don't know what other reviewers saw in this movie.. naturally John Liu and Hwang Jang Lee are excellent fighters and their skill somehow manages to bear to movie to some extent, but I was honestly never entertained by any part of it.

If you, like me, are into Chinese classic Kung Fu flicks of the 70's and 80s, you are likely to either have seen this or be about to do so, but I can't recommend it, in spite of it's good reputation. See Secret Rivals II instead, it's a masterpiece, this one isn't.

This is one of Hwang Jang Lee's first movies and it was pretty good at that. It concerns two men, played by Wong Tao and John Liu who are both after Hwang but don't realize it. The first half is standard kung fu. Things get good during the second half when John Liu, a great kicker also, and Hwang Jang Lee begin to fight. All leads to an excellent final battle between Wong Tao, John Liu, and Hwang. Hwang proves he's more than a match for the two combined. The kicking, although not as fancy as some other movies, is still impressive.

THE SECRET RIVALS is a lively and solid kung fu film that helped launch the screen career of master villain Hwang Jang Lee. The film is set in ancient Korea and features a couple of kung fu fighters teaming up to bring down the Silver Fox, a wily master who has some high-kicking talent. You can guess which role Lee plays. The movie was directed by Ng See-Yuen, who has made some of the better entries in the martial arts genre, and is never less than entertaining.

One thing I did notice about this film is that it was made in the middle period between the success of the Bruce Lee and Shaw Brothers movies but before Jackie Chan came along and revitalised the decade at the end of the 1970s. Thus the fight choreography isn't quite as top notch as it would get to be later on in the decade and in the early 1980s, although the fights here are still pretty good and have a tendency to get better towards the end. There are some fun training sequences with a larger-than-life dummy and an Ennio Morricone score borrowed from an old spaghetti western. Lee is a delight as always and is well matched by the talents of John Liu and Don Wong.

This movie was the first karate/kung-fu movie that i had seen and still today i watch it definately a classic, the Silver Fox is one cool dude anyway good action tons of fights good plot and the usual dubbing but overall 10/10.