If you're into classic martial arts fare,then look no further.Sun Chung,known for his beautiful cinematography which dwarves the actors against the beauty of China,weaves an intricate period costume tale around top stars Fu Sheng(Chinatown Kid,Hong Kong Playboys)and Ti Lung(Drunken Master 2,Five Shaolin Masters)who play an unlikely tandem united against a shared enemy,played by eternal baddie Ku Feng(still churning chop socky flicks out well into his 70's!).The twisting plot and dazzling fight choreography will leave you gasping for air.
Chi(Ti Lung)stumbles through the desert wilderness,near death,when he happens upon a mysterious well-dressed stranger(Fu Sheng)who saves his life.After the two briefly scuffle,Chi breaks down and thanks the stranger,telling him the cautionary tale behind why he has come to this low state.Chi is a former member of the Eagle bandit clan,adopted as a small boy by the chief(Ku Feng)as are countless scores of other children,and rigorously trained in the pugilist arts,killing off most of the others,until his human emotions have been stripped away and he is a killing machine,loyal to the chief.The young men who survive the torturous discipline form the bandit clan who thieve and kill their way into infamy.On one mission,Chi is gravely injured and left behind.He is found unconscious in the forest by a nearby family who awakens long buried emotions in the cold-blooded killer as they nurse him back to health with kindness.Fully healed,he leaves the family and returns to the clan,unable to forget what the samaritans have done for him.When the chief tells his Eagles of their next target,Chi is shocked to find that it is the very family who helped him in his hour of need.He accompanies the bandits to the family's home,and though visibly changed,he is forced to kill the young pregnant daughter with his three sectional staff as the other Eagles wipe out the rest of the family.Wracked with grief,Chi escapes the gang and rides off into the desert and the state in which the stranger found him,in the midst of returning to Eagle headquarters to take blood vengeance against his foster father and his band of unscrupulous murderers.The stranger named Cheuk,vows to assist Chi in his quest,and helps him to kill off the bands of Eagles now hunting Chi in the wilderness.
Eventually the duo reach the headquarters at the edge of the desert,fighting and killing their way to the villainous chief,Chi with his three sectional staff,and Cheuk with hidden wrist blades that slide into his dual armbands.When the chief sees Chi allied with Cheuk,he immediately recognizes him as the rich young husband of the woman that Chi had earlier killed.He suggests that Cheuk has hoodwinked Chi into helping him defeat the Eagles,and plans to murder Chi to complete his revenge afterwards,spiralling the two men into a fight.
The chief assists Chi in fighting the vengeful widower,but in mid-battle Chi and Cheuk join forces and attack the leader together,killing him.After the fight,Cheuk admits he had known all along who Chi was,but after hearing Chi's story by the campfire in the desert,he had deducted the former bandit was free of blame.Chi then uses his weapon to draw Cheuk's wristblades into his midsection,fatally wounding himself and completing his blood oath despite Cheuk's forgiveness.At the end,Cheuk honours his dead wife's grave alone.
I couldn't gush enough praise for this martial classic,with its three dimensional characterizations,pessimistic tone,and top tier screenplay adapted from a famous novel, a true must-see for any potential fans of Kung Fu cinema.Sheng and Lung shine in the action sequences,and both actors give emotional performances worthy of any mainstream drama I've ever sit through.Sheng's Cheuk is even more poignant knowing that six short years later,just as he had achieved international star status in "Hong Kong Playboys"(1983) and had purchased the late Bruce Lee's Kowloon home,he was fatally injured in an auto accident when his brother crashed his Porsche 911 Targa into a wall almost ten years to the day after Lee's untimely death.To this day,rumors persist that Sheng's ghost haunts the Shaw Brothers backlot,where a shrine to the actor was placed in his old makeup cubicle.This film is just one more tribute to his tragic story.
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