Veteran director Lu Chun-ku leads handsome Liu Yung, pretty Liang Yun-hsin, and “Thundering Mantis,” Liang Chia-jen on a madcap mixup filled with cons, double crosses, and triple plots. It’s starts in sickly comic style as the trio’s fathers are poisoned by Lady Wu so she could steal the rare artifact known as the Double-Faced God. Extracting a deathbed promise from their wives to train their children to take back what is rightfully theirs, the siblings grow up to exact a vengeance that is more hilarious than horrific.
It's a no-holds-barred battle to the death for possession of the invaluable Purple Sword. Assistant director Wang Po-yi also wrote this entertaining and exciting adventure which could have also been called "The Five Tigers" since there's no doubt that this quintet is the highlight of the action. Huang Tsung-shun is "Fierce Tiger," Hung Liu is "Drunk Tiger," Hsu Erh-niu is "Lame Tiger," award-winning actor Ku Feng is "One-eyed Tiger" and respected director/actor Wu Ma is "Sick Tiger" in a tangle of tussles and thrills.
Chang I, Chen Hung-lieh, Shu Pei-pei, Essie Lin Chia
The versatile and prolific Wang Feng writes and directs this ensemble epic which unites actors from both Shaw Brothers' film units and their television network, HK-TVB. The place to be is flat number 8 on the second floor of the Gossip Street apartment building, where all the neighbours gather to gossip. The sitcom turns serious when a local mobster wants to change the place into a gambling den -- leading to a satisfying finale where hearsayers turn into heroes to save their neighborhood.
When Chang Cheh created "heroic bloodshed" swordsman films, he changed martial arts cinema by having more male than female characters in the genre. The Silver Fox is a throwback, the last of its kind where the heroic swordsmen are women. Lily Ho (before she became one of Shaw Brothers' great erotica actresses) portrays the feared swordswoman Silver Fox, who witnessed her father senselessly wounded and her mother raped. It's 18 years later and it's payback time.
Applauded director Li Han-Hsiang was one of few directors that made soft porn acceptable by mainstream audiences; using the thematic device of "sex on a mission" cynicism, suggesting that sex was the ultimate power. In the sex comedy The Scandalous Warlord, the true power that drove the country's many warlords were the prostitutes that these men would routinely visit. Therefore, the power in this film lies in the hands of the sassy Shirley Yu and the titillating Shaw Yin-Yin.
Wang Chung was a valued actor long before he became a director, but as a filmmaker, he helped create some of the most interesting thrillers Shaw Brothers ever released - including this fascinating crime saga of a Sino-Vietnamese crime gang. Danny Lee stars as a misunderstood refugee while Ray Lui plays a cop struggling against his own conscience to ensure that justice is upheld.
Li Hsiu-hsien, Ray Lui, Cheng Tse-shih, Lin Chung-cheng
The Boxer Rebellion was one of the most incredible events in China's long history. Infuriated by the Western Imperialist power's intrusion into their country, the masses trusted rabble rousers who maintained that they had developed a kung-fu which was impervious to bullets...leading to wholesale slaughter at the enemies' guns. The "godfather of the kung-fu film," Chang Cheh, was given one of the highest budgets to date to tell this sweeping war story of disillusionment and revenge. Kung-fu choreographer Liu Chia-liang led an all-star fighting cast featuring international favorite Alexander Fu Sheng and Shaw Brothers' villain supreme Wang Lung-wei. Even the most avid fans of BLOODY AVENGERS, the heavily edited U.S. version of this film, will find this uncut, uncropped original a welcome revelation.
Liu Chia-liang is arguably the best martial arts film director of traditional style kung-fu action and was a pioneer in focusing on authentic martial arts techniques and training procedures in his films. This is the why stars in his movies looked more like kung-fu experts rather than actors simply going through the motions. So although David Chiang had starred in over 40 films as a martial arts hero, in Shaolin Mantis, where he plays a man who learns martial arts from a praying mantis then seeks revenge for his wife's death, the movie contains some of Chiang's best fight scenes ever. By casting his brothers Liu Chia-yung and Gordon Liu Chia-hui into the mix, Liu further ensures that the pugilistic mayhem will be even more outstanding.
David Chiang, Liu Chia-hui, Lily Li, Huang Hsing-hsiu
This third installment in Shaw Brothers' acclaimed adaptation of the classic novel, Journey To The West is possibly the most exotic of all. Sex and spectacle are combined as our heroes find themselves trapped in the home of the seductive Seven Spiders, who are bent on achieving immortality by eating monks' flesh. There are weird fun and wacky adventures from beginning to end, with the sets and costumes belonging as much to the psychedelic 60s as ancient China.
With the 007 craze at its height, it is little wonder that Interpol operative "009" is as adept with casinos and cars as he is with girls and guns. For "Bond" fans, this film is truly "From Hong Kong, with love...!"
Margareg Tu Chuan , Tang Ching , Shen Yi , Chang Pei-shan
Superstar Linda Lin Dai in one of her most acclaimed roles. The story is about a forbidden love between a country maiden and the emperor. Emperor Cheng-te met Li Feng on a visit to South China. It was love at first sight for the lovely girl and the handsome emperor. Cheng-te left with a promise that Li Feng would be his empress. One year later, when the emperor sent for Li, her weak health cannot stand the arduous journey, she arrived just to die in the arms of her man.
Lin Dai, Chao Lei, Chin Chuan, Yang Chi-ching, Wong Yuen-loong
Four martial arts experts live in Seoul after the Korean War in the 1950s. One of them inexplicably crosses path with a drug trafficking syndicate, and his three friends have no choice but to fight a brutal battle on his side...
David Chiang, Ti Lung, Wang Chung, Yasuaki Kurata, Chen Kuan-tai
Wang Chung mixes comedy, tragedy & melodrama in this unique action film. Lung Tien-sheng & Cheng Tse-shih play incompetent cops whose ineptitude leads to rape, duplicity & murder, and must redeem themselves by taking down the gang responsible for the crimes.
Hong Kong rhapsody is a musical extravaganza full of song and dance! Peter Chen-Ho stars as a playboy magician who changes his ways after he becomes the guardian of a young singer (Li Ching), the daughter of a deceased magician friend.
