DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

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  ...

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 ...

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  ...

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  ...

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. ...

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  ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Snake pits!  Swordplay!  Cheng Pei-pei having great fun with a secret clan of deadly women!  Also featuring a lively song and dance number from Pei-pei herself, one would think The Golden Sword would constantly be one of the most energetic Shaw Brothers productions out there.  It’s not.  In fact ...

The Flying Dagger, written and directed by Chang Cheh, takes its homage to filmmaker Akira Kurosawa quite seriously and opens with a monochrome romp in the reed fields as two lovers take some time to enjoy each other.  It’s tastefully done, but - because this is a wuxia film - is interrupted  ...

Jumping right into the 20-year drama of this family saga, Dragon Swamp opens with an attack from a group of angry monks who want the Jade Dragon Sword returned to their monastery.  To say they are annoyed by the thieving ways of The White-Faced General, Tang Dachuan (Huang Chung-Hsin) ...

In which, a watermelon becomes a dangerous weapon!  Or at least its seeds do!  All joking aside, The Invincible Fist is a wonderfully realized wuxia flick that deserves to be recognized.  If not for the incredible use of leafy, green reed fields, then for the fight choreography which has Lo Lieh battling it out  ...

A female-led wuxia film is nothing new.  I know a lot of people want to give that credit to Ang Lee, but history suggests otherwise.  Just because popular American cinema failed to notice what Asian cinema was doing (for a long time!!!) doesn’t mean that it wasn’t happening.  Just look at 1966’s Come  ...

Opening with a gloriously brutal raid on a village, Killer Dart sets the stage for this multi-layered revenge story with gusto.  It is bold with its drama, dynamic with its action sequences, and strong with its characters.  And it is no wonder why, especially when you consider just who is behind the camera ...