Chop Socky Cinema
Chop Socky Cinema
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
The Shaw Brothers made a lot of martial arts films covering Shi Nai-An’s The Water Margin, the 14th-century Song Dynasty novel, but it is here, with 1972’s Chang Cheh adaptation (covering chapters 64 through 68 of the novel, if memory serves me correctly), where they struck gold. The film is ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: The Water Margin (1972)
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
There are a lot of firsts involved with the legacy of The One-Armed Swordsman, which is now on blu-ray thanks to Nova Media. Obviously, it’s the first in the trilogy of Swordsman films, but (and more importantly) for Hong Kong cinema, this was the first film to make a million bucks in its initial domestic ...
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Secret passageways! Zombie-looking baddies! Corpse worm pills! Evil dungeons! And Hammer Studio-like atmosphere galore! Also featuring an impaling from a peg leg, The Devil’s Mirror is bananas! It definitely puts the SOUP in the supernatural ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: The Devil's Mirror (1972)
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Written by Ni Kuang, Chang Cheh and Chin Shu-mei, The Delightful Forest is actually a restaurant in a small town. It is also a place where gambling and prostitution is accepted. But, wuxia fans know it as the movie in which Ti Lung steals the show as Wu Song, a lone warrior who believes wine makes ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: The Delightful Forest (1972)
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Written, directed, and starring Jimmy Wang Yu and made for Raymond Chow’s Golden Harvest (and not the Shaw Brothers after he left them), One-Armed Boxer takes its kung-fu leanings as seriously as it does its villains' row. Recognizing this, Arrow Video presents the film in a special limited ...
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Cheng Pei-Pei is back in action! This time she wields a whip instead of a sword and, as it is time for the Shaw Brothers to experiment with their brand of wuxia, one shouldn’t be surprised that its take of revenge comes across as paper-thin. ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: The Shadow Whip (1971)
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Decapitations! Impalements! It’s time to let the limbs fly! Early on, it really feels like this wuxia is going to deliver something altogether different as a martial arts film. There are a bunch of early highlights as the crimson charm gang is confronted among crypts, corpses, and a skull which seems to float into ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: The Crimson Charm (1971) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Get those fists ready! It’s time for some hand-to-hand combat as one family is absolutely brought to its knees due to an Emperor’s secret mission. Shaolin Mantis, distributed from 88 Films, opens with David Chiang shadow fighting against ...
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Brothers Five, directed by Lo Wei, is a definite early high water mark for the Shaw Brothers as the production design is absolutely through the roof and the locations are far and wide, making this violent story a beautiful canvas for a whole lot of bloodletting which is Wei’s specialty ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: Brothers Five (1970)
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- By Loron Hays
- Category: Chop Socky Cinema
Lady of Steel features one of my favorite fight sequences as its co-headlining stars - Cheng Pei-Pei and Yueh Hua - “fight” each other to determine just where their allegiances lie. The set design of this village is cool. From balancing on the top of a bridge to running on water and flying to rooftops ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 2: Lady of Steel (1970)
More Articles ...
- Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 1: The Golden Sword (1969)
- Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 1: The Flying Dagger (1969)
- Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 1: Dragon Swamp (1969) - Blu-ray Review
- Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 1: The Invincible Fist (1969)
- Come Drink With Me (1966) - Blu-ray Review
- Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 1: Killer Dart (1968)
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