Shaolin Intruders

Hong Kong premiere: October 6, 1983
Director: Tong Gaai
Stars: Derek Yee, Pai Piao, Liu Yu-Po, Ko Fei, Chan Shen, Kwan Feng, Ku Feng, Ai Fei, Dang Wai-Ho, Lee Hoi-Sang
Story Overview: Someone is killing the heads of the four most influential clans, and three friends find themselves in the middle of the trouble. When one of them is accused of the crime, they set out to solve the mystery, but soon find that the evidence leads them to the Shaolin Temple itself!
My Nutshell Review: A twisty revenge plot, a bit of a mystery, three friends standing together against a community that seems to have turned completely against them. Derek Yee is serviceable in the lead, Liu Yu-Po not quite everything one might want as a love interest, but some solid supporting work from a veteran cast. And some quite good, though not genre-defining, fight scenes. An otherwise slightly above-average Shaw Brothers movie that is really elevated by a superior performance from Pai Piao in a largely comic role. His best work ever, in my opinion, and not to be missed.
My Flickchart Score: 83% (What’s This?)
Watch it free on Amazon Prime here.

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In-Depth Synopsis

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After our showcase opening credits sequence (during which we see the Shaolin training with various weapons and techniques), we open on a road through a forested valley. A chief on horseback leads a troop of armed men, followed by two other horsemen, one of whom carries a banner, white trimmed in red, with golden writing on it: GOLDEN TIGER ARMED ESCORTS. The chief (Dang Wai-Ho) suspects an ambush ahead and sends his two horsemen ahead to scout. But it turns out that it’s already too late, and even as the scouts ride back the ambush is sprung. Several of the men are killed by a spear-trap before the assailants enter the fray. It turns out there are only four of them, dressed in black and green, with masks over their faces. They make quick work of the men on foot and turn on the horsemen. The two scouts are similarly dealt with fairly easily, but the chief puts up a little more of a fight, actually succeeding in disarming his foes. They use some sort of deadly palm technique to kill him anyway. This will be important!

Cut to a gambling house, where Qiao Yidou (Pai Piao) wins a big pot at dice and tips the croupier (Fung Ging-Man). Just then four armed men enter, led by Chief Fang Changfeng (Ai Fei), the head of Tianfeng Clan. He orders everyone except Yidou to leave. The Pit Boss (Ho Pak-Kwong) begs him to leave his business in peace, but Chief Fang slashes up his clothes to teach him a lesson. “Fang Changfeng,” Yidou says, “I really hate to be interrupted when I’m gambling. Don’t you know that?”
Chief Fang is unperturbed. “Let’s make a bet,” he says.
“I’m honored to have a chance to gamble with Chief Fang from one of the Four Big Families.” He indicates the table. “You place your bet first.”
Fang shakes his head. “Not this,” he says.
“Not this? Whatever you want, as long as it’s a bet.”
“I bet that you can’t locate Lei Xun within three days.”
“Lei Xun the Wanderer?...the chances of winning are too slim.”
Chief Fang turns to the crowd (who, despite his orders, have gone nowhere). “Listen, everyone,” he says with a smile, “gambling addict Qiao Yidou refuses to bet. What a joke!” He laughs, and the crowd laughs uneasily with him.
“Fine,” Yidou says. “I'm in.”
“The wager?” asks Chief Fang.
“One thousand taels of gold,” Yidou answers, to which Chief Fang rolls his eyes and turns away, “and if I lose I’ll cut off my own head.” This renews the Chief’s interest.
“Deal!” he says.
Yidou laughs and rubs his hands gleefully. “Pay up!”
“Why?” asks Chief Fang, confused.
“Chief Fang, you’ve lost. Lei Xun is in that room!” and he points. “Lei Xun,” he calls, “get out here! A certain Mr. Fang is handing out money!”

Now we’re inside the room, where Lei Xun (Derek Yee) sits at a meal with Ye Qinghua (Liu Yu-Po). He bears a sword in a sheath. She has unique weapons, two golden knives bolted onto her wristbands. Upon hearing Yidou’s words, he jumps out the window just as Chief Fang busts into the room. He asks Qinghua where Lei Xun is, and she answers “How should I know?” He reaches for his sword, but she throws one of her knives, which catches his sword-arm. In the subsequent confusion she herself jumps out the window as well, as Chief Fang calls after her uselessly.

Lei Xun walks through a forest but stops, sensing danger. Suddenly a rope hidden under some leaves seems to come to life, swirling about and finally wrapping around him. It isn’t tight, though, and he shakes it off, leaping atop a high rock. “Qiao Yidou,” he shouts, “stop playing games.” But he has leapt directly into another trap, and a black bag closes over him as Yidou swings down from a tree. “If you run away,” Yidou says, “I will never collect the thousand taels of gold from Fang Changfeng!”

Anyway, fortunately for the audience Yidou has spent the last month in the gambling house and doesn’t have any idea what’s been going on in the world, so Lei Xun has to explain to him once he’s cut himself out of the bag. There are Four Big Families in this story (the Tiger, Wind, Cloud, and Dragon Clans...more on these names in the next section). That opening battle we saw was the murder of the head of the Tiger Clan. Chief Fang is the head of Tianfeng (Wind) Clan, and suspects that someone is carrying out a vendetta against them (again, more on this in the next section), and he wants Lei Xun’s help. But Lei Xun doesn’t want to get involved, so he ran off. Yidou understands perfectly, or at least he understands the relevance from the gambler’s point of view: someone is going to kill Chief Fang, and Yidou must get Lei Xun to him before that happens so he can collect on his bet. Whatever happens after that is immaterial, but dead men don’t pay up. So he grabs Lei Xun and drags him along to Tianfeng Clan HQ.

The two arrive to find all Chief Fang’s men dead. The Chief staggers towards them, bleeding. Yidou rushes up and catches him as he falls. “Don’t die just yet! Lei Xun is here, give me my money!” he begs, but too late. The two friends argue, but when they hear footsteps approaching they fall over and play dead. Four men run into the room, the same four who attacked the Tiger Clan earlier (I mean, apparently...they are still wearing masks). As they pass, our heroes jump up and fight them. At one point the four manage to knock Lei Xun down and attempt their deadly palm attack on him; he dodges, and they hit the stone floor instead, hard enough to leave handprints. Our heroes recognize this technique: “Shaolin Jingang Palm?” they say in unison, as the villains escape.

Now another lord enters. This is Chief Lu (Ku Feng), leader of the Baiyun (White Cloud) Clan, who begins to examine the bodies. Each of Chief Fang’s men has an ugly hand-shaped wound on his sternum, but Chief Lu is mostly interested in the blade sticking out of Chief Fang’s back. It’s the same one Qinghua stabbed him with earlier. All three men know this, and there’s a short discussion of it. Chief Lu says that he’s heard that there’s a “special relationship” between Lei Xun and Ye Qinghua, who he accuses of being a witch. Lei Xun insists that she isn’t a witch, and that they are merely acquaintances, not lovers. The Chief remarks on the deaths of the leaders of two of the Four Big Families, and Yidou bets that the Baiyun will be next. A short scuffle ensues, which Lei Xun breaks up, saying they don’t want to fight. Chief Lu says that he has invited Chief Long of the Heilong (Black Dragon) Clan, so they can work out what to do in this situation, and wonders aloud whether Lei Xun is aiding the killer, who he assumes is Qinghua. Lei Xun says that she’s innocent, and points out the marks on the victim’s chests. One of the chief’s own men says, “Ah, Shaolin Jingang Palm!” but the Chief tells him to be silent. That technique is taught only in the Temple, and the Shaolin cannot possibly be responsible for these attacks. Yidou thinks the chief is blaming Qinghua because he’s afraid to confront the Shaolin. Our heroes leave, with Chief Lu’s admonition to stay away from Qinghua following them.

Now we’re at a restaurant, where live snakes are being butchered to make soup. I mean, it is what it is. Lei Xun eats while Yidou gambles, but they don’t stay long. Qinghua was supposed to meet them, and once it’s clear she isn’t coming, Lei Xun realizes that she must be going to retrieve her knife. The two race off to Chief Lu’s house, but just as he’s leaving Yidou stops and looks back at all those snakes, with a scheming smirk on his face.

We see Chief Long (Kwan Feng) examining the blade in question. He says, “Twenty years ago I suggested that it wasn’t enough to kill the Six Demons of Guangdong. We should also have gotten rid of their families. If only you had listened, these murders wouldn’t have taken place.”
Chief Lu gently scolds him. “Brother Long, you’re speaking in anger. We’re men of righteousness. We can’t just kill innocent women and children.”
Chief Long sighs. “As long as we find the witch’s daughter, Ye Qinghua, we can avenge Fang Changfeng’s death,” and Chief Lu nods.

Just then there’s a flurry of activity, as Qinghua helicopters into the room (I don’t know what other verb I could use for what she’s doing) and demands her golden knife. Chief Lu accuses her of the murder of Chief Fang, which of course she denies. Chief Lu orders his men to kill her. She fights the men off, carefully killing none of them with her remaining knife. Chief Long throws her other knife at her, and she flicks it aside into an attacker’s leg, then retrieves it. She accuses Chief Long of a cowardly attack, at which Chief Lu grabs a great notched scimitar from one of his men and declares that he will kill her himself. During the ensuing melee Chief Long draws a bow and arrow, and at his touch the arrow springs into flames. But just as he takes aim at Qinghua, a bunch of snakes fall on him! He understandably freaks out, drops his weapons, and starts swatting at the snakes. Chief Lu is bearing down on Qinghua when a bunch of snakes land on him as well, and he falls back. Qinghua looks up to see Yidou grinning at her from a high window. “Step back,” he calls, and then throws a whole sackful of snakes onto the Chief’s men. Lei Xun rushes in and grabs her as the men all dance around in a panic. The trio escape.

Now back to the woods, where Qinghua is angry at Lei Xun for not killing the Chief’s men. Lei Xun says he must find out the truth, and that it’s not safe for her to go wandering around, since she’s the prime suspect. She’ll be safe with Yidou. She asks why she can’t just go with him. Why is he always finding excuses to stay away from her? Lei Xun has no answer to this, and so simply sets off for the Shaolin Temple to try to find out what’s happening.

The Hall of Discipline at the Shaolin Temple, where monks who misbehave get tortured back to righteousness. We see all sorts of mean-spirited things going on, from monks praying in supremely uncomfortable positions to barefoot monks carrying an enormous urn of water on ground scattered with marbles. It is overseen by Master Kongxing (Lee Hoi-Sang), who appears to take unseemly pleasure from his work. He tells the four monks who work under him to make sure everyone continues their particular trials for at least two more hours while he’s away.

In the main sanctuary of the temple, Lei Xun is meeting with the Shaolin leadership, including the Abbot (Chan Shen) and Master Jianxing (Ko Fei), who is asking how he can be sure it’s Shaolin kung fu, since he doesn’t know the style himself. Kongxing, entering mid-discussion, agrees. There are many deadly palm techniques, taught by many different families, that could be responsible for the murders. Lei Xun insists that it was specifically Shaolin Jingang, which enrages Kongxing, who first orders him to leave and then tries to attack him. The Abbot says that he cannot believe that his monks were involved, and invites Lei Xun to return if he can find any actual evidence. Once he’s gone, the Abbot and Jianxing talk about how Kongxing’s reaction was too violent, even if the accusations were insulting. The Jingang Palm is unique, even if other styles do ape it, and they worry that there might be bad elements in the temple.

Yidou and Qinghua have found an interesting hiding place: the treasure room of Chief Lu’s own house! Yidou is coaching Qinghua as to how she might land Lei Xun. Basically he tells her to send mixed signals, to pique his curiosity. She says that she’ll try his method, but he’d better watch out for his head if it fails. Meanwhile, downstairs, Chief Lu arrives home with his entourage, but we notice that his door guards are wearing black masks. One of his men gives him the news that Lei Xun has gone to Shaolin, but Chief Lu declares this to be a misdirection. Once Qinghua is found, all the surviving supporters of the Demons of Guangdong will be rounded up. As he speaks, the masked doormen shut and lock the front door. Chief Lu notices this, then jumps to the balcony above where another figure is slouching out of the shadows. He attacks this figure with his great scimitar, but the enemy easily eludes him, and he realizes that it is in fact a monk! His three compatriots kill all the Chief’s men (by doing some weird crab-dance thing) while he battles the Chief above, finally felling him with that same deadly palm. This at last makes enough noise for Yidou to notice, and he runs to see what’s happening while Qinghua hides in the treasure room.

As he runs down one flight of stairs he sees the four killers rushing up the other and hides, then rushes to the side of the dying Chief Lu. Lei Xun arrives at this same moment. The Chief confirms that the killers were monks, and Qinghua, entering the room, says that there are four of them. They ransacked the treasure room while she was hiding there. She saw them and could identify them if she saw them again. At this, Chief Lu dies, and the trio determine to return to Shaolin.

We find the Abbot indignant. So what if Qinghua saw four monks? There are thousands of monasteries in the country. They weren’t necessarily Shaolin! Qinghua, meanwhile, is willing to storm the place and find the guys she’s looking for. The trio want all the monks to fall out for an identity parade, and the Abbot refuses. But Master Jianxing has an idea: if the trio can pass three tests, they’ll be allowed in to review the denizens of the Temple. These tests will be trials by combat, of course, and since the monks refuse to fight a woman, it’s gonna be up to the two guys. Yidou rolls his dice, which he always carries, to see who goes first, and it’s him. So he heads off to face the first test.

He must get across a fairly large room, past five monks armed with halberds, led by Jianxing. If he can reach the plaque on the other side of the room, he passes the test. The walls are lined with weapons, and he’s allowed to use any he likes, but he prefers his own sword, which looks like a knife but telescopes out. This is a very entertaining combat, though there isn’t much actual combat in it. Mostly, the monks preen (impressively swinging their halberds in carefully-orchestrated unison) while Yidou tries to stay away from them. A couple of times he even tries climbing pillars and crawling along rafters to reach the other side. At one point he uses an entire rack of halberds in an attempt to ram his way to his goal. After his sword proves ineffective against the monks’ halberds, he discards it and turns to his real weapon: his dice. He has two enormous ones tied to opposite ends of a short rope, and this he wields partly like nunchaku, and partly like a whip. Eventually, he lights fuses in them, and the monks (thinking he’s using explosives against them) flee, giving him space to reach the plaque. Afterwards, he shows them that the dice were only smoke bombs, and that they’re full of the smaller dice he gambles with. First test passed!

Now Lei Xun faces a similar test. He must make his way across a courtyard containing twelve monks (the 12 Jingang Warrior Formation, it’s ominously called) in order to pass. These monks are armed with staves called bo, though we discover during the fight that each can be broken down into a three-segment staff, or sanjiegun, as well. Incidentally, among the twelve are Elvis Tsui, Ma Chao, and Alan Chan, who are easy to spot because they’re the only ones who speak. Tsui seems to be their leader. Lei Xun starts the fight unarmed, which doesn’t seem fair, but the monks spend little time trying to beat on him with their staves, rather using them to create intricate webs around him; if they can bind him fast, he loses. After getting trapped in and escaping a bunch of interesting- and painful-looking positions, he steps back to take a breather. The Elvis Tsui character says that the Twelve Jingang Warriors have been unable to bind him, and that if he stops now his name will be well-known because of this unprecedented feat, but Lei Xun points out that his name is already well-known. He has, however, decided that it’s time to draw his sword. Now the combat heats up a bit, as the monks realize that they will need their more flexible sanjiegun to fight his sword. At this point Lei Xun really starts to take a beating, but ultimately makes it through via the time-honored tricks of throwing dust in his opponents’ eyes and darting between their legs. So, second test passed!

The Abbot points out that our heroes have been through a lot, and the third test will be put off to the following day to make sure they’re at full strength, so the trio retreats to a local inn for the night. There they meet Chief Long, who accosts Qinghua. “You wish to avenge the Six Demons?” he asks. “Come on, then! The entire Heilong Clan is here.”
“Do you think I could get rid of the Golden Tiger Clan, the Tianfeng Clan, and the Baiyun Clan all on my own?” she scoffs. “Chief Long, you think too highly of me.”

Lei Xun steps in and explains that the killers are in Shaolin Temple, and tells him about the trials they’re going through to find them. But Chief Long says that these killers are merely Qinghua’s accomplices, and the two start to fight. The rest of the Clan jumps in, but Yidou and Lei Xun hold them off. Qinghua gains the upper hand and launches one of her blades at Chief Long, who is saved only by Lei Xun knocking him down. Lei Xun asks the Chief to wait ‘til the following day, when he’ll be able to prove what he says, and because Lei Xun has just saved his life the Chief agrees. Yidou then tries to make everyone friendly by taking them in for a few drinks, and a few rolls of the dice.

The next day, Chief Long and his men accompany the heroes to the Temple to witness the third test. It’s the big set piece of the movie, and pretty impressive. The heroes find another courtyard, this one with a couple of dozen of those small benches that kung fu heroes so often use as props and weapons set out. Lei Xun and Yidou must climb onto these benches and fight the Abbot. First one to touch the ground loses. Jet Li, of course, would later take this same motif to absurd heights in the great Once Upon a Time in China II, but it works well here also. At the beginning of the fight, all the benches are on the ground, but as they go the combatants pile them higher and higher. Lei Xun and Yidou almost fall off many times. There’s a moment where Lei Xun starts breakdancing atop the tower, forcing the Abbot to jump over him again and again. The Abbot nearly falls off once, but is saved by landing on the heads of two monks and jumping back onto the tower. At this point he strikes a blow on the benches themselves that causes half the tower (the half our heroes are standing on) to collapse. Yidou falls to the ground, but manages to catch Lei Xun and keep him in the game. Then, when the Abbot jumps down to continue the combat, Yidou kicks the bench he intended to land on away. The Abbot is on the ground, Lei Xun is still on the benches...third test passed!

The Abbot is, of course, bound by his word. But there are so many monks in the Temple that he isn’t sure where to begin. Qinghua suggests that the most likely offenders are those who have broken the rules, so Kongxing, his four assistants, and the inmates of the Hall of Discipline are brought forth. Qinghua steps up and immediately identifies the four assistants! Kongxing goes into a rage at this. The four deny it, and drop to their knees to beg their master to listen to them. Kongxing, for his part, refuses to take Qinghua’s word. If his men are robbers and murderers, then surely the plunder must be in the Temple. He dares the heroes to search for it, and begins running around like a maniac, opening cabinets and smashing furniture. And when he smashes a particular table, a hoard of gold and jewels spills out.

Kongxing, now in a frenzy of despair, begs the Abbot to punish him, since he’s responsible for the actions of his subordinates. The four still proclaim their innocence, so he rushes and kills them, then (to save the honor of Shaolin) leaps head-first into a pillar, smashing his skull. A more dramatic suicide you’ll never see. The monks all drop to their knees in sorrow. Lei Xun apologizes to the Abbot, who simply says “Goodbye.” The heroes and Chief Long leave the Temple.

Now we see the Abbot alone before the shrine to Bodhidharma, praying aloud. “How could there be such cold-blooded killers among us? I believe there are traitors among us. I’m determined to find out the truth, or else he [Kongxing] has sacrificed for nothing.” The other monks enter behind him, and he turns to face them. Jianxing says that Kongxing sacrificed himself to save the honor of Shaolin, and there is no need for the Abbot to be so sad (I hope this is a bad translation, because that’s a dumb thing to say). The Abbot answers, “If someone is to be blamed, I’m the Abbot, and we had killers among us which I knew nothing about. I should be responsible. I ought to be the one to die.” He turns and kneels again at the altar, and we see that he has a small red object clasped in his hands. “Founder, I am no longer qualified to be the Abbot,” he prays. “Let me be.” Then he strikes himself a mighty blow to the forehead, blood pours from his mouth, and he falls dead. Once again, all the monks kneel and pray.

Now we’re back at the inn, where our heroes are having a rather muted victory dinner. Lei Xun in particular is too deep in thought to even respond to toasts. Qinghua accuses him of trying to think up excuses to leave her again, and he points out that he needs no excuse. He isn’t tied to her and can come and go as he pleases. As if to prove the point, he storms out. Yidou tries to keep the mood light by offering Qinghua another drink, but she starts throwing things at him and tells him to get out. She never wants to see either of them again. Yidou is inclined to argue, but Lei Xun, hiding just outside the door, beckons him to follow. He has questions. The killers wore masks when they fought them. And Yidou said they wore masks when they killed Chief Lu, as well. So how did Qinghua see them clearly enough to recognize them? And how did she know immediately to search the members of the Hall of Discipline? Yidou has no answer for these questions (which, frankly, should have been asked much earlier). Lei Xun suspects that Qinghua is involved after all, and that Chief Long is in danger. They set off after him right away.

A ghostly figure walks down the street in front of the inn where Chief Long is staying. And when I say a ghostly figure, I mean four or five people sitting on each other’s shoulders and covered by a white sheet, with a big weird mask on top. That thing’s gotta be upwards of twenty feet tall. It stops outside Chief Long’s window and screeches at him. He shoots it with one of his flaming arrows; all the people jump out from under the sheet, which collapses burning into the street. Another ghost, this one ordinary human-sized, cackles outside his door. He can see its silhouette on the (paper) door, and fires another burning arrow into it. The body, engulfed in flames, bursts through the door and flies at him. It turns out to be a dummy, manipulated from behind by one of the killer monks (who, of course, were not the ones killed at the Temple by Kongxing). A desperate fight breaks out between this monk and Chief Long, while the other three monks slaughter his followers outside and the entire inn begins to burn. Once all his men are dead, the Chief himself is thrown out the window, then each of the four monks stabs a limb with the barbed ends of the whips they’ve been using as weapons and carry him off that way, which looks super-painful. Lei Xun and Yidou arrive too late and find only the bodies.

Now we find Chief Long suspended by his wounded limbs, being approached by...Jianxing! He reveals that he’s really Ye Cheng, leader of the Six Demons (and Ye Qinghua’s father), long thought dead. We see a flashback of the ambush laid by much younger versions of Chiefs Lu, Long, Fang, and...whoever the leader of the Tiger Clan was. They never did bother to name him, did they? Anyway, we see that he was wounded by a spear and cast into a pit, but he managed to crawl his way out to find all his compatriots dead, including his wife. She was killed by Chief Long himself, with one of his flaming arrows. She was the last to go, and was left burning on the ground as the chiefs walked away victorious. All of this has been staged to not only give him revenge, but place him at the head of the Shaolin Temple. Thanks to the suicide of the Abbot, as well as that of Kongxing (who would have been next in line, which of course is why Qinghua implicated the Hall of Discipline in her accusation), Jianxing will certainly be the new Abbot, and will rule the martial world. After explaining all this, Jianxing hits Chief Long so hard with his staff that his body flies backwards, leaving his arms and legs still tied to the posts and rafters! So that’s that for the heads of the Four Big Families.

Qinghua walks in, sees the body, and congratulates her father on his revenge. He says that Lei Xun and Yidou are loose ends that need to be tied up, so she takes the four monks and sets off after them. We cut to the inn, where one of the monks tries to silently pick the lock to the pair’s room. But they aren't sleeping, and Lei Xun stabs him through the door. So right away, we’re down to three monks! The heroes and villians fight through the inn for a few minutes, until the unfortunate innkeeper comes to see what all the ruckus is about and Qinghua kills him. I mention this because the innkeeper is played by Wong Ching-Ho, and it seems like a waste to have him in the movie just for this. Anyway, the boys scold her for killing an innocent bystander, but she says that the so-called civilized clans are worse, and mentions her mother being killed by Chief Long as a particularly vicious act. She tells them that her father has arranged all of this to get revenge, and when they ask who her father is, she says, “You still don’t know? My father is now the abbot of the Shaolin Temple.” It turns out that she should have kept that information to herself.

Anyway, this is pretty good fight, Yidou vs. Qinghua and Lei Xun vs. the three monks. Along the way Yidou manages to slip a few sips of wine, which would be more effective if he’d been shown to be a drinker earlier. The only addiction he seems to have is to gambling. He’s getting the better of his fight, even wounding Qinghua in the arm, but Lei Xun is in trouble, so he breaks off to attack and disarm the monks (well, to knock their barbed whips away...they still have swords). At this point Qinghua attempts a sneak attack, launching her blades at the boys, but Lei Xun deflects one right back at her that strikes her in the heart. The monks, bereft of leadership, suddenly seem lost. Two of them are killed right away. The third attempts a Jingang Palm attack, but the boys stab him through his palms and into his chest, killing him. Poetic!

Yidou asks what they should do with the bodies, and Lei Xun says to bury them. When Yidou points out that they have no coffins, Lei Xun tells him to buy one if he’s feeling so humane. So Yidou walks over to Qinghua’s body and says, “We were friends. I’ll find you a good resting place.” He goes to pick her up, but she isn’t quite dead, and plunges her last blade into him. He staggers away and collapses into Lei Xun’s arms, saying “It’s better to be harsh” before he dies.

At the Temple, Jianxing is named the new Abbot (of course with a great show of false reluctance), and decrees that there will be three days and three nights of prayers for their dead brothers. Lei Xun buries Yidou, and places his dice and his telescoping sword on his burial mound. But then, on second thought, he takes the sword with him; better to avenge Yidou with Yidou’s own weapon. And now it’s back to the Temple for the big finale.

Jianxing is sitting alone in a small chamber off the main courtyard, praying over the dead Abbot’s body, when he hears his name being called. He walks outside to find Lei Xun carrying a large bundle wrapped in a white, bloodstained sheet. “I have a present for you, to congratulate you on your promotion,” he says, and unwraps the bundle which is, of course, Qinghua’s corpse. Jianxing mourns over her, and demands to know who killed her. Lei Xun tells him that he (Jianxing himself) did it. Qinghua was born innocent, and Jianxing forced her into a life of cruelty and set her on the road to a violent death. But of course Jianxing isn’t interested in philosophy. He tells Lei Xun that he nearly died, turned to Shaolin, and only set himself on revenge when he found that Bodhidharma was useless.

“Not so!” says a voice from behind him. It’s the Abbot, who of course wasn’t really dead. He faked it (shutting down his vital signs by manipulating his chi, and that red object we saw in his hand apparently contained the "blood" that he spit out) so he could find out who the traitors in his Temple were. Jianxing drops to his knees by his daughter, crying her name and saying that he has failed. But when the Abbot turns his back on him to thank Lei Xun for his assistance, Jianxing suddenly strikes the old man with his mighty staff of office and sends him flying across the courtyard. Now the fight between him and Lei Xun begins, staff vs. sword. Lei Xun has the best of this from the get-go, first slicing his enemy’s face, then cutting his abbot’s robes off of him, and finally stabbing him in the chest with the sword. But Jianxing is tougher than he thinks, snapping the sword in half and continuing the fight (against his now unarmed opponent) with the end of the blade still sticking out of him. Finally he pulls the blade out and throws it so that it pierces Lei Xun’s shoulder.

The fight eventually ranges back inside the Temple proper, and of course the other monks, seeing their brother under attack from an outsider, don’t wait to find out what’s going on. Soon Lei Xun is fighting the Twelve Jingang Warriors once again. But even they can’t withstand his righteous wrath, and when they form a human pyramid he manages to knock it down and attack Jianxing again while they try to regroup. However, just as he’s about to strike the mortal blow, the twelve switch again to their sanjiegun and begin seriously to injure him. He braces himself, blood pouring from his mouth and shoulder, for the final blow, when suddenly the Abbot calls “Stop!” Once again, he isn’t dead.

The Abbot informs the Shaolin that Jianxing is the villain, and that it’s time to clear the garbage from the Temple. Jianxing, facing certain death, tries one last time to exact revenge on the injured Lei Xun, but the Twelve spring into action and kill him with their sanjiegun. The Abbot thanks Lei Xun for his help, and as he staggers out of the Temple we see flashbacks to moments with both Yidou and Qinghua, remembering the good times and the bad, so that we know he will honor their memory. ANOTHER SHAW PRODUCTION.

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A NOTE ON THE FOUR BIG FAMILIES:

The film doesn’t do a great job, at least in the English subtitles, of handling the names of the four clans. Lei Xun lists them at one point in English: Tiger, Wind, Cloud, and Dragon. Those English names will never be referred to again. Instead Chinese translations of the names will be used: Heilong, Tianfeng, and Baiyan (the Golden Tigers never get a translation). Also, of course, we never learn the name of the Golden Tiger Chief, killed in the first post-credit sequence, which is too bad. But just for you guys (well, and to settle my own curiosity), I did a little research.

Chief Lu’s clan is the Baiyan, which translates as “White Cloud.” Why his clan isn’t the one that dresses in white I couldn’t say. Chief Long’s clan is the Heilong, which means “Black Dragon.” This is the one that got me started down this path, actually, because I remembered that the Pinyin name for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is Wo Hu Cang Long, which made me think that Chief Long’s name was a dragon reference, so I had to check that.

Anyway, yes, on to Chief Fang. His clan is called the Tianfeng Clan, and I could not find a translation of “tianfeng” as a single word (apparently, if the two syllables are divided into two words, it’s a personal name). But “feng” definitely means “wind,” and as far as I can tell the full name means something like “sweet wind,” or it might be “heavenly wind,” though I certainly wouldn’t want to bet anything very valuable on that translation. Because so much depends on the tones used, Chinese words that look identical to Westerners often have multiple meanings, but “tian” stands out even in that company as having a zillion possible definitions.

Finally, the Golden Tiger. It would feel weird for that to be the only clan without a Chinese name. I mentioned before that I’m trying to learn Mandarin, but I confess that I haven’t made much progress yet. Nevertheless, I think I can say with fair confidence that the first clan, the Golden Tiger, would have been called Jin Laohu if the film had bothered. I tried to compare the actual Mandarin characters with the banner they carry, but it fluttered too damned much in the breeze, so I couldn’t be sure. And of course nothing will tell us the name of the Golden Tiger Chief, which is annoying.

I’ve already used this research to edit my synopsis, which means that if you’ve read that without seeing the movie you have no idea how confusing that all was originally (or how messy the original synopsis was because of it). If I’d just kept quiet about it nobody would ever have known! While we’re at it, Baiyan is an administrative district in Guangzhong, and Heilong is a Chinese river (the world’s tenth longest), for what it’s worth. Aren’t you glad you read this far? Could you have lived another day without that information?

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM:

Pai Piao. He’s the comic sidekick in this, but really overshadows Derek Lee’s hero. Yidou is one of my favorite Shaw Brothers characters ever, and Pai Piao’s best performance. He is unflappable but not aloof, funny but never a fool, cynical yet undone by his own compassion. He is a complex and fascinating character in a genre that all too often downplays characterization, sometimes even in its best films, and he really adds something special to this. I almost lose interest in the movie once he’s dead; in fact, I considered making his death the “Worst Thing About the Film,” but thought it was too much to have one guy responsible for both best and worst.

SHAWISMS:

The Flying Carpet is back again! Here it’s at the HQ of the Baiyan Clan. Chief Lu is killed right on it!

The studio loved to have people, when fighting as a team, get themselves into weird formations. Think of the 18 Buddha Attack from the last film I covered, Shaolin Prince. We see it in this one with the Shaolin climbing onto each other to form a human pyramid or locking their weapons together to use them in concert, but the weirdest thing is what three of the four rogue Shaolin do while wiping out Chief Lu’s clan: they lie on their backs, join arms, then spin around, fly into the air, and kick their enemies to death. Does that sound ridiculous? Well, that’s why the next heading is out of order.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM:

That weird three-man formation mentioned above, when Ku Feng was killed. It looks ridiculous. It would be way too unsteady to endow the participants with any exceptional strength (in fact, it would tend to cancel out ordinary strength!). Also, it was being used against men carrying pole arms. Those guys should have had no trouble at all hanging back a little bit and chopping off legs while never getting in range of being injured themselves. I can suspend disbelief to super-human levels, but even I am thrown off a little by this silly sequence.

NITPICKING:

The Golden Tiger Clan really didn’t use very smart tactics in that opening battle. First all the footmen get wiped out without intervention by the three horsemen (the Chief and his two main guards). That might be excusable, since only three of the assassins were dealing with the footmen while the last attacked and held off the other three Tigers, but what happens next? Do all three attack the assassins, making for a manageable four-on-three battle? No. The Chief simply stands there watching while his two guards attack. Each is individually outnumbered two-to-one, and that ends up being decisive as each is killed by one assassin while attacking another. And of course this finally leaves the Chief to fight all four alone, long odds for anyone. He does put up a bit of a fight, more than anyone else has, even disarming his opponents. But of course he had no allies left to take advantage of this weakness, and they kill him. Whoever choreographed that fight should have done a better job.

!?! !?! !?!

It’s weird that everyone immediately assumes that someone is out to kill the heads of the Four Big Families. They’re already thinking it when the Golden Tiger Chief is killed. But he was leading an armed escort carrying a large gold shipment! Isn’t that more likely to be a simple robbery than a grudge? Robberies were committed at the scene of the second and third attacks as well, and I admit that by that time the assumption had become pretty reasonable. Once you have three victims it makes sense to figure out what they have in common, but you can’t do that when there’s only one victim. It turns out that everybody jumped to the right conclusion, but they’re still jumping to conclusions.

!?! !?! !?!

If you ever wanted to see a live snake being butchered, this is the film for you! I myself could have lived without it. But the studio did occasionally kill animals (usually chickens) in their productions, which is unfortunate. The animals are food and would have been killed anyway, but I’m not sure it needed to be on screen.

!?! !?! !?!

Jianxing specifically says, when he’s about to kill Chief Long, that he wants his death to be slow. Ten seconds later he’s dead. Is this an error in translation? Did he really say “messy” or “painful”? Because it was those things, but “slow” it certainly wasn’t. You don’t get a slow death by tearing a guy’s limbs off.

!?! !?! !?!

Qinghua carefully explains everything that’s happened to Lei Xun and Yidou, then says she has to kill them because they “know too much.” Well, whose fault is that? If she’d just kept quiet there would have been no way for anyone to identify Jianxing as the mastermind (everyone who remembers Ye Chang is dead), or consequently herself as an accomplice, and both might have survived the film. Jeez, she has a Bond villain’s inability to keep her damned mouth shut.

!?! !?! !?!

How on Earth did Lei Xun manage not only to just walk right into an inner sanctum of the Shaolin Temple, but to do it carrying a human corpse? That seems unlikely, given how much trouble he had getting in there earlier. Is it part of the Shaolin mourning process to have no goddamned guards whatsoever?

!?! !?! !?!

Right after the Abbot has turned out not to be dead, he walks past Jianxing to talk with Lei Xun, and in so doing turns his back on this man who is responsible for dozens of deaths, has been driven completely mad by the desire for revenge and now has a new target for that revenge (Lei Xun’s impassioned speech aside, he did kill the man’s daughter), and has proven to be a capable and deadly fighter. The Abbot doesn’t die for real because of this, but it isn’t for lack of trying.

!?! !?! !?!

Speaking of Jianxing, man, he takes a ton of killing. Lei Xun runs him through with a sword, then delivers something very like the Deadly Palm attack to him, then stomps on his chest with all his weight. Any of these three wounds might easily have been fatal, aside from numerous lesser injuries suffered in that battle. It finally takes multiple stab wounds from the Shaolin themselves to bring him down. This isn’t a complaint, of course. I like a hard-to-kill villain. Just wanted to mention it and this seemed like a good spot.

THOUGHTS:

I’m not sold on Liu Yo-Po. In the first place, she doesn’t have the physical skills to play this part. She does none of her own stunts and little of her own fighting in this. Watch her scenes and notice how often the camera cuts just as she does something cool. Her stunt double had to work awful hard on this film. But you forgive that for an actress who’s bringing a high level of performance to the part, and I’m not sure she does. She’s just not a sympathetic character, and we need her to be. We need to be invested in these three friends, but she keeps us at a constant distance. She never does anything we can really cheer for. She never has a moment of warmth, compassion, or vulnerability. And you might say, “Well, why should she? Are you only expecting her to show these qualities because she’s a woman?” to which I say, “No. Pai Piao shows all of these qualities, and we love him. We should love her as much.” When she turns out to be a villain, we’re only bothered by it because Yidou and Lei Xun, the characters we do care about, are bothered.

Although, perhaps I should alter that statement. Yidou is bothered. Is Lei Xun? Derek Yee doesn’t give a great performance, either. Part of that seems to be the way his character is written. He never regards Qinghua as anything other than a nuisance, which makes us wonder why he keeps her around. He should have been written as a man divided between his desire for her and his desire to remain free. And even if he wasn’t written that way, Derek Yee should have played him that way, but he isn’t a subtle enough actor for that.

So, the two main characters could have been better-cast. It’s more of a problem with Liu Yu-Po, in my opinion. The movie can survive Derek Yee’s stoicism, that sort of thing is commonplace with action heroes, though we might wish that someone with personality (Gordon Liu, say) had been cast in the part. Liu Yu-Po is harder to get around, because the weakness of that performance affects the overall narrative of the film. I should love Qinghua so much that I myself am injured when she turns on Yidou and Lei Xun. The audience should feel as betrayed as the characters do. I realize that Kara Hui can’t be in every movie, of course, and Lily Lee was too old by this time, but the Shaw stables were full of actresses who could have created a fun, sympathetic character while also pulling off the action (or at least doing it better than this). If Kara Hui is off the table, why not Yeung Ching-Ching, or my own first choice Lin Chen-Chi?

But neither performance is really bad, just ordinary, and they don’t wreck the film. Pai Piao as Yidou is so good that these problems are pretty well smoothed over. I've already written above about how much I love him, but it bears repeating that Yidou is among the most-entertaining and best-realized characters in the studio’s history, and really stands alone as a comic sidekick. Much as I love Lam Fai-Wong or Hsiao Ho, they were never quite this much fun.

The supporting cast is strong. Chan Shen and Lee Hoi-Sang are always reliable, of course, as are Ku Feng and Kwan Feng. Philip Ko Fei’s Jianxing is a good villain, as well. It was a surprise to me when he turned out to be behind the murders. In part, of course, that’s because the film defies the expectations of Shaw Brothers fans with the casting: when we see Lee Hoi-Sang, who has played so many poisonous characters, wearing those imposing false eyebrows and seeming to draw sadistic pleasure from the suffering of the monks he’s disciplining, it seems obvious that he’s somehow involved. When he turns out to be innocent, it’s shocking in a way that it wouldn’t be to someone less familiar with the studio. Of course, that also means that Ko doesn’t get much screen time openly playing the villain, which is too bad. Still, he’s pretty fearsome, a good match for Lei Xun in one-on-one combat, able to convey grief and rage ably. His plan seems to have flaws, but many of these disappear upon closer inspection. The assassinations of his enemies would have gone more smoothly if his daughter hadn’t been an automatic suspect, for example, but once it was clear that the heads of the Four Big Families were his targets, it was perhaps inevitable that she would be. And I think we have to assume that her already-existing friendships with Yidou and Lei Xun were designed by her father to see that she had protectors who would stand with her against the clans.

It still might seem that involving Lei Xun was a mistake, since ultimately it would lead to his death, but Lei Xun was necessary for his plan to work. Simply killing the four Chiefs was obviously no big deal; he, his daughter, and his four rogue Shaolin were far better fighters than the men they were hunting. But he also wants to be the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple, and in order to elevate himself he needed a committed investigator on the case, someone both willing and able to stand up to the Temple and call them to account. Once that happened, Qinghua’s testimony would ensure that blame would fall on Kongxing, one of only two men above him in the Temple hierarchy, eliminating him and leaving the other superior, the Abbot himself, in a shameful position. In fact, Jianxing might have relied too much on Lei Xun. If he and Yidou hadn’t passed the tests allowing them to enter the Temple, it’s not clear that his plan would have succeeded. And he shows off plenty of fighting skill in the big final battle. As I mentioned above, he is a difficult man to kill, and I like that in a villain.

I like also that final shot, of Lei Xun walking out of the Temple with memories of both Yidou and Qinghua playing in his head. It shows that he will not forget them, neither of them. It indicates that he has forgiven Qinghua, and counts her among her father’s victims. Again, if we felt more strongly the attachment between the two characters it would be a lot more effective, or if forgiveness had been a major theme throughout the film, but it’s still a nice note to end on.

So, we don’t have a real classic here. We have a film with several good, even very good, elements and a few very ordinary ones, which is elevated by one great element, the character of Yidou and his portrayal by Pai Piao. I would argue, in this context, that this is enough to make Shaolin Intruders a must-see for any fan of the studio. But of course your mileage may vary. If you think this truly is a classic, or conversely that its flaws sink it, lemme know in the comments!

Shaolin Prince

AKA Iron Fingers of Death, Death Mask of the Ninja, Dragon of Death, Wu Tang Prince
Hong Kong premiere: February 25, 1983
Director: Tong Kai
Stars: Ti Lung, Derek Yee, Pai Piao, Lam Fai-Wong, Alan Chan, Ma Chao, Lee Hoi-Sang, Ku Feng, Kwan Feng, Yuen Wah, Chiang Tao, Yuen Bun, Wong Chi-Wai
Story Overview: Two infant princes are spirited away after the king and queen are killed by a usurper. One is raised by the prime minister, the other by three mad monks exiled by the Shaolin. Two decades later they meet and join forces to defeat the man who murdered their parents.
My Nutshell Review: Silly even at its best, and drags a bit in places, particularly when it goes off on a sub-plot about an exorcism, but has some very good fights and a rare lighthearted performance from Ti Lung to make it fun. And the final battle, with a contraption unlike anything else I’ve seen in a Shaw Brothers film (or any other kind of film, really) pushes it over the top. A definite recommend for fans of the studio or genre.
My Flickchart Score: 87% (What’s This?)
Watch it free on Amazon Prime here.

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In-Depth Synopsis
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We open in a throne room. The Ninth Prince, who calls himself Iron Fingers, is planning to kill the royal family and claim the throne, and his army is at the gates. The King (Ai Fei) knows that he and the queen can’t be saved, but he wants to save the lives of his two young sons. So there are a couple of dozen soldiers standing before him, and each carries a spear and an infant. The idea is that they will all make a run for it, and the usurper won’t know which children are the real princes, increasing their chances of escape. The real princes are entrusted to Li Chang (Yuen Wah) and Gu Long (Kwan Feng). Li Chang has the older brother and also the royal seal. Gu Long has the younger brother and the king’s magic sword.

Just as all the soldiers are ready to escape, the usurper’s army arrives, commanded by a traitorous general played by Wong Pau-Gei. A battle breaks out under the opening credits, and the general breaks through the defenses around the king and holds a sword to his throat. All the action stops for a few tense seconds, and it looks like the general will use the king as a hostage and order the soldiers to stand down, but the king takes away this opportunity by cutting his own throat with his enemy’s sword. Gu Long throws his spear so hard that the general is thrown back against the wall. Battle resumes, blood is shed on both sides, but then enemy archers appear, prepared to skewer every soldier (and infant) in the place. Gu Long somehow sets off smoke bombs by pulling strings in his belt (?) so that he and Li Chang can escape, after once more swearing before the dying king to do their duty and save the princes.

They and eight other men arrive at a bridge over a small river. Here they are ambushed by the two fiercest assassins the Ninth Prince employs, the Fire General (Chiang Tao) and the Water General (Yuen Bun). The Fire General is dressed in red and gold, and carries a staff with fire at both ends and a hooked sword that bursts into flame during combat. Also, he seems to be able to cause explosions just, like, whenever and wherever. The Water General is dressed in blue and uses twin swords with multiple barbs along their edges. He can move under the water’s surface faster than men can run and jump out of it like he’s been shot from a cannon. Also, he’s coded homosexual for some reason. A combat ensues and most of the soldiers are killed, but four escape. Gu Long runs off alone, while Li Chang is accompanied by the other two. The Fire and Water Generals aren’t worried. “They aren’t going anywhere,” sneers the latter.

Now we’re on location in a forest, where Li Chang and his two exhausted comrades rest. Li Chang says that he thinks they’re safe, but he has spoken too soon. A group of enemy soldiers approaches, along with the Ninth Prince (Pai Piao), borne on a palanquin. Two quick asides here: the characters in the film go back and forth between calling this character “the Ninth Prince” and “Iron Fingers.” I’m gonna go with the latter, just because this movie is full of princes and it’ll be simpler. However, when quoting or directly referencing dialog in which the characters call him the Ninth Prince, I’ll use that name, so just remember that he’s both guys. Also, about his palanquin, or sedan chair (I’ve recently learned it’s called a Jiao by the Chinese themselves, just in case we needed another word). I’m actually not sure that any of these are the right word, since unlike all the other palanquins that I’ve ever seen, it is open, rather than a seat in a closed box. To differentiate it from the more ordinary palanquin we’ll be introduced later in the film (bearing a sacrificial virgin!), I’m just gonna call this thing a throne, because that’s what it looks like, and riding in it Iron Fingers looks like a king surveying his domain. And lemme tell ya, it’s seriously tricked-out, as we’ll find out in the big final battle.

Anyway, Iron Fingers knows that Li Chang has one of the real princes, and can tell that the bundle tied at his belt is the royal seal. One of the other men tells Li Chang to run, and he’ll hold the enemy off. But of course he can’t; Iron Fingers knocks him down with a single blow and attacks Li Chang. The third soldier tries to help, but the Prince jabs him in the neck with his...iron fingers. So that’s why he’s called that!

Iron Fingers offers not only to spare Li Chang, but to promote him, if he’ll turn the two young princes over. Li Chang looks at the overwhelming odds, kneels, and thanks him. “One must be adaptable,” Iron Fingers says, coming forward to take the infant, but suddenly Li Chang stabs him with his spear. Unfortunately Iron Fingers is wearing armor. He breaks the spear and goes for Li Chang’s throat, as he did with the other two, but Li Chang dodges and instead is wounded in the back. He runs off, and when Iron Fingers goes to follow him Li Chang’s two companions tackle him to the ground. “Go after him!” he calls to his men as he kills his attackers.

Cut to Gu Long, wading through what looks like a sewer and towing the young prince on a little raft. He reaches a bell rope and pulls it, and a bell sounds in the house of the Prime Minister (Ku Feng), who opens a secret trap door under his throne, allowing Gu Long to climb up carrying the baby. The Prime Minister asks where the others are, and Gu Long tells him of the ambush, and his fear that everyone else was killed.

Now we see three monks sweeping the courtyard of a small, walled-in homestead. These are the three Holy Fools, Wu Ming (Lam Fai-Wong), Wu Zhi (Alan Chan), and Wu Li (Ma Chao). They hear someone calling for help outside their little enclosure and go to see what’s happening. They open the gate to see Li Chang, bleeding, barely able to remain upright. He tells them his name and that he studied at Shaolin and begs for their help. The monks reply that they are being punished. They aren’t allowed to leave their dwelling and aren’t supposed to talk to anyone. “But I’m carrying a child!” Li Chang says, as the Ninth Prince’s soldiers approach.

Li Chang tries to fight off the soldiers with his half-spear while the Holy Fools decide what to do. After all, four against one doesn’t seem fair, and there is a small child to consider. At this moment the four soldiers succeed in knocking Li Chang down and all leap on him, swords-first. He throws the infant high into the air, and the three monks form a human chain hanging from a tree near the door, catch the baby, and bring it safely into their enclosure. Then Wu Ming does a strange series of moves where he’s thrown at the soldiers by his brothers, kills them without touching the ground, and comes back to the gate by walking on their bodies. Just before they close the gate, Li Chang calls once more. He crawls to them and gives them the seal, saying that it belongs to the child. “Don’t worry,” Wu Zhi says. “We’ll give it to him when he grows up,” which is the last thing the loyal Li Chang ever hears. The Three Holy Fools decide to raise the child themselves, thinking it will fun, and they’ll teach him their kung-fu. And once he’s older, he’ll be able to go outside for them, which they can’t do themselves. They won’t ask the Chief Abbot to admit him to Shaolin. He’ll belong just to them.

Now we jump ahead twenty or so years, and see the elder prince as an adult now called Dao Xing (Ti Lung) practicing his kung fu in the courtyard. We learn that for his whole life the monks have been training him in large part by frequently launching surprise attacks on him, or setting traps for him, so that he’ll always be ready for anything. We see a little series of these attacks, some with Dao Xing losing, and some with him surprising and overcoming his uncles. At one point Wu Zhi gets set on fire. So, in real life all of this would be super-dangerous and Child Protective Services would long ago have taken Dao Xing away, but here it’s all fun and games. Dao Xing has grown up kind of goofy and carefree.

Then we check in on the younger prince, now called Zi-Tai (Derek Yee). Under the care of the Prime Minister he has become a serious young man, a scholar and warrior. Our first scene sees him attacked by a masked swordsman at night in his room. He fights him unarmed for a moment before getting hold of a sword of his own. In a very nice move he flips through the air, dodging a lunge from his opponent, and while upside-down in midair slashes the mask away from his face, revealing Gu Long. So this is training, too, like when Kato used to attack Inspector Clouseau at odd moments. Zi-Tai thanks Gu for his training as the Prime Minister walks in laughing and saying “Well done!”

The Minister congratulates Gu on how well the training has gone. Zi-Tai has become a very good swordsman and is ready to avenge his family, but Gu says the time hasn’t come. Although Zi-Tai is good with a sword, he isn’t strong enough to defeat the Ninth Prince alone. Zi-Tai laments his brother’s death, since the two together would be able to take him. So now we know that nobody ever found out what happened to Dao Xing.

Speaking of Dao Xing, we see him at the Shaolin temple, getting food to take home to the Holy Fools. As he’s leaving he passes a number of young adepts being trained by Dao Kong (Lee Hoi-Sang), who I assume is no relation. Kong accosts Dao Xing, asking why the young man doesn’t come to the temple to learn from him. Dao Xing says that he is learning lots of kung fu, but Kong says, “Yeah, what those three are teaching you, but you don’t bother with my kung fu...if all three of the Holy Fools are teaching you, you must be pretty good.” He puts on a display of his own style, and Dao Xing watches politely. Then he dares Dao Xing to try to hit him, which Dao Xing does effortlessly. “That’s not Shaolin kung fu!” he complains. “What is that?”

“I was just faster than you. Simple as that,” Dao Xing answers, and walks away. Kong, not having learned his lesson, attacks again, and Dao Xing knocks him down without even spilling the tray of food he’s carrying. Once he’s gone the students all laugh at Kong, and we see by his face that Dao Xing has made an enemy.

Now back to the homestead. Once again the Holy Fools have set traps for Dao Xing (you’d think they’d at least wait ‘til they’d gotten their food!) but Dao Xing completely outsmarts them in a very slapstick sequence. In fact, in the English dub, Dao Xing even refers to his style as “slapstick kung fu”! Finally the three attack him all at once, but he simply leaves the enclosure and taunts them from outside. “Why don’t you eat all those buns?” he asks. “I’ll be back in a while,” and walks away leaving them laughing and swearing at him.

Now back to ultra-serious Zi-Tai, practicing his swordsmanship again. Gu is wearing a glove to mimic Iron Fingers’ hand, and says that if the prince can defeat him, he’s ready to take his revenge. We have a neatly-choreographed little fight where Gu repeatedly traps Zi-Tai’s blade between his fingers, manipulating him easily and controlling the combat, until finally breaking the blade and holding his fingers to the prince’s throat. In anger and disappointment Zi-Tai throws the broken sword so that it transfixes an image of Iron Fingers on the wall.

At Iron Fingers’ headquarters, he strides laughing among his generals. He’s been the power behind the throne for twenty years. There is no one at court strong or brave enough to oppose him. There are spies everywhere, and nowhere is there a report of a single word spoken against him. But just then two men arrive to tell him that the Prime Minister has adopted a son (they’re just learning this now?). He’s about 23, leading Iron Fingers to wonder whether he could be the missing prince. We also learn that one of these men, Tu Wei (Wong Chi-Wai), has spies within the Shaolin temple, but so far they have nothing to report. Iron Fingers says that the only style that can beat him is the Yijing, a rare Shaolin practice. It would be very dangerous if one of the young princes had ended up at Shaolin. Tu Wei and the Water General are sent to check up on this possibility, while Iron Fingers himself will look into the Prime Minister.

Zi-Tai walks into the Prime Minister’s chambers to find him hosting Iron Fingers. “Where are your manners?” the PM asks. “Greet the Ninth Prince!” Zi-Tai bows, and Iron Fingers decides to test his kung fu. He and the Fire General take turns beating him up, and Zi-Tai has to take it, pretending that he knows no kung fu at all. The PM protests that his son is merely a scholar and prefers books to more active pursuits. After Zi-Tai fails to defend himself against an attack that nearly puts his eyes out, Iron Fingers believes him. Later that night, after Iron Fingers and his retinue are gone, the PM, Gu, and Zi-Tai talk. It’s clear that Iron Fingers has begun to suspect them, and must sooner or later find out their secret. But Gu repeats that Zi-Tai isn’t strong enough to fight him. The only way he can win is to go to Shaolin and get the Yijing book and learn that style. Zi-Tai says he will leave for Shaolin immediately.

Meanwhile, Dao Xing is wondering when he’ll get to study the Yijing. We see a montage of all the crazy things the Holy Fools have taught him to do, from meditating to sleeping with his body perfectly straight, supported only by his head and feet. He rips great heavy posts out of the ground, performs phenomenal feats of balance and strength...the Holy Fools have already taught him what’s in the book! He doesn’t need to learn it.

Dao Kong meets with the Water General and Tu Wei in the forest. He tells them about the Holy Fools and how they adopted a son who is the right age to be one of the missing princes. Kong doesn’t believe he’s a prince, he’s too goofy and dumb, but when the Water General says to kill him anyway, just to be sure, he doesn’t argue, since he holds his own grudge. Tu Wei says that they also want the book of Yijing, but Kong says it’s too well-guarded to be stolen. The Water General says to kill the young man first, then they’ll figure out how to get the book.

Kong is training his adepts again, this time with wicked-looking double-bladed swords that Star Trek must have used as the inspiration for the Klingon Bat’leth, as Dao Xing arrives. As always, he walks past the trainees, watching them practice with a smile on his face, when Kong suddenly throws his weapon. It just misses Dao Xing. “Brother,” he pants, “you tried to kill me!”

“You know how to duck my blow,” Kong says. “Those crazy fools taught you quite a bit. Why don’t you teach us?” He tosses one of the weapons to Dao Xing, who says he’s never been trained with weapons. But when Kong attacks Dao Xing dodges him easily. He still doesn’t believe Kong means to kill him, even after one attack rips his robe and another cuts the tray he brought to carry his uncles’ food in half. Still, once the tray has been destroyed he stops merely defending and fights back, and soon has Kong lying on the ground with a potentially-fatal blow halted at his shoulder blades. He lets Kong get up, and when Kong sneakily attacks him as he rises, Dao Xing leaps high in the air, knocks the weapon from his opponent’s hands, then slices his trousers up real good for him, leaving him nearly naked as all the students laugh. At this point the Abbot (Chan Shen) enters and asks what’s going on. Kong says he’s just teaching Dao Xing how to swordfight, which brings chuckles from everyone.

The Abbot tells Kong that ghosts have been reported at a local mansion. He is to go there with a few other men to investigate. Kong demands that Dao Xing come as well; Kong is putting him in charge of the exorcism! At the mansion we meet the master of the house (Shum Lo), who says that his son-in-law has just died. His daughter Suqin (Liu Yu-Po) and the dead man were very much in love, and his spirit hasn’t been able to let go. He begs Dao Xing to send the ghost to his rest, and of course Dao Xing is not up to that. Suddenly the ghost possesses the body of Suqin. Long nails spring from her fingers and she attacks the monks, killing all but Dao Xing and Kong. All the candles in the room blow out and we see a strange combat by unearthly blue light. Dao Xing tries to fight her off as Kong runs for it. The ghost begins tossing large objects around and reanimating the corpses of the slain monks to attack him.

Just when all seems lost, Zi-Tai comes in. Convenient! The ghost attacks him, but some animation leaps from his drawn sword and banishes the ghost to the afterlife. Dao Xing thanks Zi-Tai, who explains that his magic sword can dispel evil spirits. So that’s also convenient, and yes, we’ll have something to say about this in the next section. The point is, Dao Xing and Zi-Tai have met and become friends, though of course they don’t yet know that they’re brothers.

The next day Dao Xing and Zi-Tai walk down a road talking. Zi-Tai says he’s going to Shaolin, and of course so is Dao Xing, who offers to show him the way. Then suddenly we’re there at the temple (yes, that oft-used location at the top of the really long stair). Kong watches from the top of the stairs, angry to see that Dao Xing is still alive. Dao Xing isn’t coming in, explaining that he lives in one of the outbuildings, so Zi-Tai climbs the steps to the temple alone. Kong and a few of the monks come down to meet him halfway, saying that weapons aren’t allowed inside. He’ll have to leave his magic sword outside. Zi-Tai refuses (and also enrages Kong by saying that he’s come to read the Yijing book), so a fight ensues. Zi-Tai handles Kong pretty easily, though not so easily as Dao Xing, so Kong calls on the other four monks to fight while he runs into the temple. Zi-Tai, incidentally, wins the fight with the four by tying them together with their own own sashes, which is a nice touch.

Cut to Kong arriving at the homestead of the Holy Fools, along with a dozen or so monks armed with ji (halberds with crescent-shaped blades at one end and weighted clubs at the other) and some more of those crazy bat'leth things. Kong says he’s come to arrest Dao Xing. He accuses him of saving himself at the expense of the other monks during the exorcism, and of bringing a deadly stranger to the temple. The Holy Fools say that Dao Xing doesn’t owe Kong any explanation and instruct him to fight rather than go peaceably. Dao Xing does pretty well, considering how badly he’s outnumbered, and with a little advice from the Holy Fools he’s able finally to chase the bad guys off. He tells them about Zi-Tai, the ghost, and the magic sword, and they send him up to the temple to find out what’s going on.

Inside the temple we see Zi-Tai in a duel with a monk armed with twin swords (Tong Gaai) as the Abbot and a bunch of monks look on. The fight ends when Yi-Tai makes a move that could have cut off one of the monk’s hands but stops the blade just short. The monk concedes and congratulates him on his skill. Yi-Tai asks the abbot whether, now that he’s beaten his best swordfighter, he can see the Yijing. The abbot says he doesn’t need it; his skills are already superlative. Another monk, Wu Ren (Elvis Tsui), who seems to have formed an instant dislike of Zi-Tai, accuses him of arrogance and rudeness, since Zi-Tai won’t give them his name or say why he wants the book. The Abbot says that they can’t lend the book out to anyone who hasn’t overcome their 18 Buddha Attack. Their ancestors ruled that if anyone could survive that attack he would be worthy of their respect and entitled to read any of their books. Zi-Tai agrees to the challenge, the Tong Gaai character beats on a drum and suddenly 18 red-robed monks leap down from a balcony and attack. The 18 do acrobatics more than really fight; they keep forming human pyramids and chains and such, attacking from every height and every angle. It doesn’t make any sense, but it sure looks cool.

These guys make quick work of Zi-Tai. Once he’s unconscious Ren tries to deliver a finishing blow, but the Tong Gaai character stops him. “He could have crippled me but didn’t,” he says, “how can we kill him?” The Abbot agrees. This kid obviously has a story to tell, so they lock him up, planning to question him later.

As they leave Kong enters and reports that Dao Xing has attacked and injured several monks and then run away. The Abbot asks how Dao Xing, who knows so little kung fu (I guess this is still a secret), could be a match for all Kong’s men, and Kong lies and says that the Holy Fools helped. The Abbot says that none of the Shaolin can match the Holy Fools, but they’ll search for Dao Xing (who, unbeknownst to the monks, is hiding in the room and hearing everything).

In the dungeon (since when does Shaolin have a dungeon?) Zi-Tai is tied up and hanging several feet off the ground. Kong, Wu Ren, and Tu Wei enter. Tu Wei says that they know he’s the second prince, because he has the magic sword and is after the Yijing. They plan to take him to Iron Fingers, but his kung fu is too good for it to be safe to move him, so they plan to cripple him first. But just at this moment Dao Xing walks in, and notes that Wu Ren is on the side of the traitors. All three men attack him, and he fights them off with a staff. Wu Ren is impaled on a statue, at which point Kong and Tu Wei lose heart and run off. Dao Xing, after cutting Zi-Tai down, gives his sword back to him, and the two attempt to leave the temple, only to find their path blocked by the 18 Buddha Attack.

The fight goes better this time, with Dao Xing a far more capable fighter than Zi-Tai. Man, Ti Lung looks good swinging a staff around! But the 18, now using weapons (big steel hoops) and backed up by the monks that followed Kong before, are too much for them, until the Holy Fools show up. Have they disregarded their oath never to set foot outside their enclosure? No, they’re on...well, bits of wood that look like nothing so much as pogo sticks. They start by hitting Kong with a pebble flicked so hard that it dents his forehead, and then set about dismantling the 18 Buddha Attack. The Shaolin are unable to put up much of a fight. Oh, and by the way, the three of them being constrained by their pogo sticks, fighting while having to maintain their precarious balance and remain nearly stationary, is a ton of fun and over far too quickly. The choreography and performance here is really something special. Anyway, they make it possible for the young men to escape, and give Dao Xing his birthright, the royal seal, as he leaves.

Dao Xing now has no idea what to do with himself. He’s never been more than a few miles from the homestead (to the Tai An Inn) and knows nothing about the outside world. Zi-Tai has a plan, though: a particular people (the Xia? Maybe?) are about to send a virgin as tribute to Iron Fingers, who plans to make her the Emperor’s concubine. Zi-Tai plans to use this knowledge to get him close to Iron Fingers, so he can get his revenge, and he asks Dao Xing to help him. Dao Xing should wait at the inn while Zi-Tai goes to the see the Prime Minister, and then they’ll set out.

Iron Fingers is pissed that the two got away, and is worried when he hears that Dao Xing, raised by the Holy Fools and instructed in Yijing, might be the other prince. Kong says that if the two princes are going to the capital they must stay at the Tai An Inn, and the bad guys can trap them there, so Iron Fingers sets out on his throne along with Kong, the Water and Fire Generals, and a troop of men. They arrive at the inn, and Kong questions the innkeeper (Yeung Chi-Hing) who tells him that, yes, there’s a young man in monk’s robes staying there. Fortunately, the bad guys have made enough racket to wake Dao Xing, so when they break into his room they find it empty. Kong goes out onto the balcony and everyone else runs back outside to tell Iron Fingers the news. While the bad guys sit in the street wondering where he could have gone, a palanquin approaches, carrying the virgin mentioned before.

While everyone outside is busy with this new development, Kong goes back inside and is ambushed by Dao Xing, who kills him and throws him down the stairs. This draws the attention of Iron Fingers, who rushes into the inn to see what’s happening. All his men follow, which gives Dao Xing a chance to leap down unobserved from the balcony and slip into the virgin’s palanquin. We don’t see it, but apparently he does some pressure-point thing to paralyze her, because she doesn’t cry out, and when we next see her she seems to be in some sort of trance. Iron Fingers tells his men to stay and look for the two princes while he escorts the virgin to the palace.

At the palace we see the puppet Emperor (Ku Kuan-Chung) preparing to receive the man who pulls the strings. Iron Fingers informs the Emperor that the army needs more men and food, and therefore taxes on the people will have to be increased, and the Emperor says that’s impossible, since it’s been a bad harvest and the people are already over-taxed. Iron Fingers that he hasn’t come to discuss the plans; he only needs the Emperor’s signature. The Emperor says that it won’t be legal without the royal seal, which, holy shit! It’s been twenty-three years! Nobody has made a new royal seal yet? Iron Fingers says that he, not the Emperor, is in charge, and the Emperor signs the order.

Now Iron Fingers orders the Emperor’s present, his new concubine, be brought in, and the servants carry in the still-closed palanquin. Iron Fingers makes a lewd comment or two and leaves with his men, and the Emperor approaches the palanquin. He says that he won’t hurt the young woman within, and that in fact the two of them are in the same boat, both controlled by other people. He asks her to join him in praying for the safe return of the princes to the palace, so that he won’t have to be the puppet Emperor anymore. Dao Xing is impressed by this speech, and jumps out of the palanquin. He introduces himself and expresses his surprise that the Emperor isn’t really a traitor, and the two men fall to talking.

Zi-Tai and Gu are walking through the darkened streets, and Zi-Tai is telling Gu all about Dao Xing and how he knows the Yijing kung fu. But they notice that there are many guards around the Emperor’s residence and become concerned. Gu tells Zi-Tai to go inside and see what’s going on while he goes to talk to the Prime Minister. Zi-Tai agrees, and says that if he has the chance he’ll kill the Emperor while he’s at it. But when Gu leaves, the Fire and Water Generals see him go and decide to follow him.

Dao Xing and the Emperor are still talking, alone in the monarch’s chambers, when suddenly a masked man who is clearly Zi-Tai breaks in and attempts to kill the Emperor. Dao Xing protects him, which pisses Zi-Tai off. Dao Xing insists that the Emperor is a good man, but Zi-Tai doesn’t believe him. They struggle for a while until Zi-Tai cuts Dao Xing’s face, at which point Dao Xing (who, this movie never lets us forget, is by far the superior fighter) just knocks him clean out of the building, breaking through several walls along the way. Zi-Tai declares that this is the end of their friendship and leaves the palace.

Zi-Tai mopes on a small bridge over a forest stream when suddenly he is attacked by the Water General, who he chases back into the water only to be nearly blown up by the Fire General. He gets set on fire and has to jump into the stream to put himself out, which of course puts him at the Water General’s mercy. But just in time, Dao Xing shows up and helps him kill the two attackers. So, their friendship wasn’t over for long, was it?

Together they go to the Prime Minister’s house, only to find that Iron Finger’s goons have trashed the place. Everyone is dead except the PM and Gu, but both are mortally wounded. Dao Xing attempts to bind Gu’s wounds, and when he does the seal falls out onto the ground. So now finally everyone knows who everyone is! The newfound brothers embrace as the rain starts to fall. The Prime Minister dies happy, but of course there’s work to be done. And Iron Fingers, unable to find the princes at the PM’s house, has gone on to look for them at Shaolin.

So we see Iron Fingers’ soldiers facing a squad of Shaolin outside the temple. The Shaolin are led by the Holy Fools, whose punishment is now over. Tu Wei demands in the name of the Ninth Prince that the two young princes be turned over to him, and the Fools deny that there are any princes at Shaolin (which at the moment is true, of course). Iron Fingers tells them that Zi-Tai and Dao Xing are the princes he means, and the Fools are happy to learn that their student is a prince. Iron Fingers threatens to burn the temple if they don’t obey, but then the brothers show up so it doesn’t matter. They tell the Fools that they have a score to settle with Iron Fingers and ask them not to get involved, but the Fools say to call them if it gets too tough. The monks return to the temple.

First they have to fight off the eight halberd-wielding bodyguards, led by Tu Wei, and these fights are the best in the film so far. Once those guys have all been either beaten or slashed to death, the two princes say that anyone who stands by Iron Fingers will be killed, but they’ll spare anyone who leaves now. At this point, the spear-wielding nobodies who make up Iron Fingers’ troops run off. This leaves only Iron Fingers and the four massive guards who carry his throne-like palanquin, bringing us to one of the best (and most unique!) fights in the studio’s history. It’s gonna be tough to describe, but I’ll try.

First Iron Fingers draws a short sword hidden in the arm of his throne and attacks. He fights them more or less to a standstill, as they narrowly dodge fatal blows from both his sword and his iron fingers. Finally, he and Zi-Tai leap and attack each other in mid-air. Zi-Tai is unharmed and cuts his enemy’s cape off, but the guards step up and catch Iron Fingers so that he lands seated again on his throne. The guards run around like crazy, dodging attacks, until Dao Xing attacks them directly while Zi-Tai leaps onto the throne to fight Iron Fingers one-on-one. Zi-Tai makes a leaping lunge at Iron Fingers, who pulls a switch and the throne slides backwards along its rails so that he falls short. Then the switch is flipped again; the throne shoots forward and the guards push the ends of the carrying poles together so that Zi-Tai is in danger of being crushed. Dao Xing rushes to the rescue, forcing the poles apart, and the guards retreat, then shift the now-hinged poles so that, instead of running parallel to the arms of the throne, they run perpendicular.

The brothers attack again, but this time the guards swing the throne so that the poles hit Zi-Tai hard and knock him flying. He lands unconscious. The guards keep pressing, swinging the throne around so that Dao Xing must duck to dodge it, but he whacks a couple of them on the shins with his staff and, while they’re weakened, slips his staff under the throne and uses it as a lever to flip the throne over. Iron Fingers leaps free, then leaps over the throne that Dao Xing has now sent flying at him, and we have another, more standard one-on-one duel. This time Dao Xing succeeds in knocking Iron Fingers around a little bit before he jumps back onto his throne. Now the poles are bent back so that all four guards are behind it, and the throne spins on its platform as it advances, allowing Iron Fingers to knock Dao Xing down. He rises and plants his staff between two flagstones so that he can meet the next charge, and knocks the throne onto its back (though it is still supported atop the poles). Apparently this is a design feature of the throne, though, because it fires two blades from underneath at him. One strikes him in the right elbow, disabling that arm. “You like that?” Iron Fingers asks. “Want some more?” His guards now swing the poles around so that all four are in front of the throne, and pull the ends off to reveal long blades sticking out. They charge.

Dao Xing thrusts with his staff which, fortunately, is very slightly longer than the poles on the throne, and he uses all his strength to hold the throne back inches from his chest against the continued pushing of the four guards. He fights off the pain in his arm and gives the throne a mighty push, which send the guards reeling back. They drop the throne, and at last it is broken. Iron Fingers lands hard on his back, and as he struggles to his feet Dao Xing pulls the blade from his arm and rushes to wake Zi-Tai, who rises just in time to see Iron Fingers’ iron fingers about to strike a fatal blow to the back of his brother’s head. Shoving him aside, Zi-Tai parries the blow and lands a flying kick that sends Iron Fingers sprawling again. Zi-Tai swings at his head, and slices his top-knot off. Now Iron Fingers, hair flying wildly about his face, manages to grab the blade of the magic sword between his fingers, as we’ve seen before. But when he goes to break the blade, his fingers snap off instead! Zi-Tai slashes him across the chest as he reels from the shock, but it only tears his tunic, revealing the armor below. Iron Fingers (if we may still call him that) lands a punch with what remains of his metal hand, grabs up his sword off the ground and attacks. Dao Xing now returns to the battle and deflects a blow aimed at his brother’s head. Iron Fingers does a double jump-kick that sends both brothers flying, then aims a follow-up attack at Dao Xing. But the young man jumps ridiculously high into the air, flipping over four times and coming down aiming a mighty blow with his staff. Zi-Tai attacks to draw off Iron Fingers’ guard, and the blow from Dao Xing knocks Iron Finger’s head down into his abdomen (!).

Now we’re treated to that rarest of all things: a Shaw Brothers denouement. Zi-Tai, now dressed in the white and gold robes of the Emperor, rides his horse through the hills, and we hear the bells of the Shaolin Temple, where we see that the Holy Fools are now the Abbot(s), the former Abbot is now serving tea, and Dao Xing has become a full-fledged Shaolin priest. “We know you missed our company,” the Fools say to him as we freeze-frame. ANOTHER SHAW PRODUCTION.

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BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: That crazy throne that Iron Fingers rides around on. Man, what can’t that thing do?

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: The whole exorcism subplot. It has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and it brings supernatural elements to a film that doesn’t need them (the pyrotechnics of the Fire General, and the Throne’s apparent ability to defy the laws of physics, aside). Sure, it allows Zi-Tai and Dao Xing to meet, but was there no other way to do that? Yes, it’s the only evidence we ever have that Zi-Tai’s sword is magical, but why is it important for it to be a magic sword rather than just an heirloom of the royal house anyway? Besides which the effects (or “effects”) when Zi-Tai uses the sword to banish the ghost are laughable. And Zi-Tai just happening to show up carrying a magic sword in a situation where only a magic sword can help really hurts the suspension of disbelief. That’s one goofiness too far, in my opinion. This scene belongs in one of Sammo Hung’s weird horror comedies (which, incidentally, I also don’t like much, with apologies to Sammo). Leave it out. Have the brothers meet during a brawl or something. That’s traditional, right?

SHAWISMS: The Flying Carpet shows up in this one. When Gu Long and Zi-Tai duel, the first time we see Zi-Tai as an adult, it’s on the floor of the room they fight in. Later, Iron Fingers and the Fire General beat Zi-Tai up on it as well.
Also, the Shaw’s habit of giving certain characters weird physical signifiers is in evidence with the Holy Fools. One has freckles, one has ridiculously long eyebrows, and one is cross-eyed. Was that just so potential western audiences could tell the three apart? And since the three of them are so undifferentiated, is there any point in being able to tell them apart anyway?

NITPICKING: A lot is made, both in Chinese literature in general and the Shaw Brothers in particular, of the value of unquestioning loyalty. I’m not sure it’s ever been quite so much in evidence as it is in this opening sequence, though. A dozen or more families were willing to send their infant sons out to die in order to help cover the escape of the young princes? That’s pretty serious business. And given that the rest of this movie is mostly silly fun, it seems oddly out-of-place to have something so brutal right out of the gate.

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Ever seen the Star Trek episode “The Savage Curtain”? You know the bit where the bad guys try to draw out the good guys by calling “Help me, Kirk!” or “Help me, Spock!”? Well, Li Chang seems to be channeling that voice when calling for the help of the Holy Fools. It’s an odd feeling to have the memory of that episode stirred in the middle of this film.

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When Dao Xing and Kong are fighting with the Bat’leths and Kong cuts Dao Xing’s tray in half, it’s really super-obvious that the tray was already in two pieces glued loosely together, so that Lee Hoi-Sang could just knock them apart. I get that you can’t have someone swing a real weapon sharp enough to cut through a plank of wood at your star, that would be super-dangerous, but you have to make the fake look better than that!

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I know that Ti Lung was a much bigger star than Derek Yee at this point (well, and always). Still, I think the film might have been better served by having the two brothers be more equal in skill. I know, Dao Xing has learned the Yijing method and Zi-Tai hasn’t, so the difference in their skills is justified, but the effect is to make the younger brother merely the sidekick of the older brother, where they should be partners. Let there be a difference, but let it be less marked.

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We could have used an inserted shot showing where Dao Xing hid while the bad guys were searching the inn. Just having him suddenly appear to kill Kong is a bit too easy.

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Speaking of Kong: man, Lee Hoi-Sang is ill-served in this. Just a few years earlier he was the bad-ass that Gordon Liu had to beat to be considered a master in 36th Chamber of Shaolin. In this one, he never lands a solid blow in any of his fights, and he’s in, like, a half-dozen. I know he’s a punk-ass, but he’s still Shaolin. He ought to be at least a minor threat, rather than someone both heroes can toss aside without breaking a sweat.

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Why is the Water General coded gay? What purpose does it serve in the narrative? If it was meant as an insult to homosexuals, it doesn’t work, since he’s every bit as fearsome as the Fire General and far more dangerous than any of Iron Fingers’ other henchmen. Was it meant just to say, “Hey, we’re enlightened enough to include a gay character without comment”? That’s an interesting thought, but it’s a little undercut by him being such a silly stereotype. Also, although traditionally homosexuality has been much more accepted in Chinese culture than in the West (not coming into disrepute until Christian and Muslim influence spread during the Qing Dynasty), and at the time this film was set this character wouldn’t have seemed odd, in China when this film was made homosexuality was still illegal both in Hong Kong and on the mainland. So, were they trying to make this character extra-evil? But why him? He’s far less important than Iron Fingers. I just don’t understand it. If anyone has any insight, leave a comment. I’d appreciate it.

THOUGHTS: This one’s odd. The worst bits of it are not that easy to sit through, but it has greatness in it. For example, the fire effects when the Fire General is battling are highly impressive. The flaming sword looks really good, and the stuntmen who get set on fire are doing excellent work. Even the way the fire is shot stands out, its light refracting on the camera lens beautifully, making it look like living gold. A similar effect is used on the weird weapons the Water General uses, but the effect is especially lovely with the fire. Maybe there’s some primal fire-worshiping part of my brain that responds to that.

Ti Lung, as mentioned before, rarely got to play a part where his character had fun. Playing this carefree, goofy youth gave him a chance to let his hair down, and he’s clearly having a great time. This is one of my favorite performances from him, and given his status within the studio, that’s really saying something. Also, and this a personal preference, but I really think staves and spears are the most cinematic kung fu weapons. They just look better and are more versatile than swords or batons or whips or whatever. There’s something elegant about the length and balance, as well as the non-lethal aspects of fighting with them, that really works for me. Plus the user can spin it around like a majorette, which I love. And Ti Lung uses a staff better than anyone else at the studio. It feels like he was born with one in his hands.

The Holy Fools’ shtick gets tired after a while, but they are still fun for the most part. And some of the fights are very high-quality. In particular, Derek Yee and Kwan Feng seem to have great chemistry. Both of their duels, though short, are beautifully done. I need to find out whether they ever made a film where one is the main hero and the other the main villain. In fact, between this and Kwan’s short but magnificent fight with Philip Kwok in The Flag Of Iron, I’m beginning to wonder if he isn’t the most underrated fighter on the Shaw’s roster; he seems to make everyone he fights better.

Anyway, an imperfect film, but the things it does right it does SO right that it’s still firmly entrenched in my Shaw Brothers top twenty films. I’m not sure it would be a good entry point for someone who is interested in the Shaws but doesn’t know much about kung fu films, but for people who are already fans, I think I’d have to call this a must-see. So click the link and check it out!