DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

Maybe I am getting a bit soft in my old age, but I was completely wrong in my original opinion of this direct-to-video sequel. The Man With The Iron Fists 2 does exactly what it needs to do in continuing the story of Thaddeus, the blacksmith blessed with some deeply mystical martial arts skills. It’s not better than what  ...

Battles on (and below) bridges! Awesome swordplay in familiar Shaw Brothers’ sets! Nunchuck stabbings! And the fabulous Chen Ping kicking all sorts of ass as The Bloody Hibiscus! The Vengeful Beauty, director Ho Meng-hua’s follow-up after the smashing success of The Flying Guillotine, might  ...

In which the Shaw Brothers go gonzo for pulp fiction, combining a magical spider whose webs capture foes and then melt their faces right off their skulls!  Alongside some limited martial arts mayhem, The Web of Death is an entertaining fantastical journey as choreographers Tang Chia and Yuen Cheung-yan  ...

“In this world of guns and knives, Tang Lung is the one who walks the lonely road.” Mixed with a solid sense of comedy that Jackie Chan would later use in his films, Bruce Lee’s The Way of the Dragon is a non-stop barrage of unarmed fighting as he plays Tang Lung who has traveled from China to Rome to  ...

Meteor. Butterfly. Sword. For myself, any interest that I had in Hong Kong cinema began here. Killer Clans is a martial arts masterpiece which remains stunning in its use of the shawscope lens, proving to be both spacious and gorgeous to revisit on 1080p, and, storywise, absolutely obliterates souls with its  ...

What do Pam Grier, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin’s Gordon Liu, Dave Bautista, and legendary fight choreographer Corey Yuen have in common with the Wu-Tang Clan’s beatmaker the RZA? This film, my Chop Socky Brothers and Sisters, this badass film right here. The Man With The Iron Fists ... ...

Unbeknownst to the Shaw Brothers and acclaimed director Lau Kar-leung (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter would be Alexander Fu Sheng’s final performance. Fu Sheng was one of Hong Kong's finest performers in the martial arts genre and his kung-fu films for the Shaw Brothers ...

An even better way to lose your head! That’s right, not content to let other production companies have all the fun with the flying guillotine routine, the Shaw Brothers put forth a copycat effort with yet another flying instrument of ...

Well, that’s one way to lose your head! While no one knows what the weapon at the center of this classic film can tell you what it looked like, The Flying Guillotine offers one possible and completely unforgettable design that continues to cause knees to knock. It’s little wonder that the company spent  ...

Ever wanted to watch someone fight with a bird cage before? If so, Monkey Kung Fu is the action spectacle for you! Flawed but absolutely gonzo with its wall-to-wall action sequences which involves chairs, bowls, a bed, and all sorts of interesting props, the film is energetic and absolutely off its rocker as two prisoners  ...

Beginning in the middle of the burning of a Shaolin Temple, Heroes Two throws the audience right into a fight sequence in which a whole lot of burning things becomes obstacles for our heroes Alexander Fu Sheng and Chen Kuan Tai to duck and dodge as they take on the oppression of the Manchurian  ...

It’s time to get spooky, Chop Socky fans! The Bride from Hell might be tonally inconsistent, running the gamut between horror tropes and comedy in a very clunky (but lovable) way, but it is damn revelatory in its take on gothic tropes as the Shaw Brothers tackle Hammer Studios-like atmosphere with ...

“The wall may be low, but the buddha is high.” The ultimate martial arts film when it comes to training, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin remains an amazing watch.  Here, we get an intense look at the steps in the Shaolin style of martial arts, which includes lightness, balance, arm strength, wrist technique, eyesight ...

Let the street brawls begin!  Cue the funk music because it’s time to kick some serious ass and look badass while doing it, too.  Man of Iron has arrived on sparkling blu-ray! ...

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  ...