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¦å®üÁ®½¸¤³ (1977)
Mantis Fists and Tiger Claws of Shaolin


Reviewed by: kiliansabre
Date: 09/14/2006
Summary: Bizarre!

When the local thugs harass a restaurant owners daughter Shuang Shuang (Choi Chuk-Guen), a newcomer Pai (John Cheung) fends them off. When Pai goes off to the local brothel to find his long lost sister, the thugs rape Shuang Shuang, but get killed mysteriously later in the woods. The father of the thugs, Hung Chun Piao (Dean Shek), believes that Pai committed the murders and confronts him as he tries to buy his sister from the brothel and flee the town. The confrontation escalates and Shuang Shuang steps in to help, but loses her family in the process and is subject to more rapes. More of Hung's men die which eventually leads to a fight to the death between Hung and Pai, while a government official (Cheung Lik) tries to figure out the source of the mysterious deaths.

I wasn't expecting much from this going in as it was obvious that the acting was going to be pretty bad through out, but as soon as the first fight scene started where Pai punches a guys head through a watermelon after perforating it around his head i knew i was in for something different. There are a lot of unique weapons in this one including Pai's spinning blade which he keeps in his magnetic leg sheath, Hung's dart spitting spear, and San Kuai's spiked back which he uses in the same manner as he did in Yuen Woo Ping's film as a hunchback. The kung fu was actually well choreographed and there was always something unique or different going on. Towards the end when the mysterious killer is revealed the movie becomes pretty bizarre, but somehow it all stays interesting. This is the only movie I can recall in which Dean Shek plays the actual lead villain which he plays pretty straight and is great in the fight scenes as well, but his acting like every one's in this movie is flat. The rape scenes were excessive in this film as well (there were three or four).

Overall worth a watch especially for the spinning blade and the other weapons and just for the fact that it truly is a bizarre movie. If not for all the rape scenes and the bad acting, I would give it a higher rating.

Reviewer Score: 6