Reviewed by: Tenth Dan Date: 11/21/2020 When the honourable head of The First Family is named leader of the martial world the other proud houses and rival clans send their top killers and sneakiest assassins to topple him... Though the bodycount of this movie is immense the action is not hardcore or gory. What it is is sweetly arranged and pretty well photographed given the budget so although the print I saw (Rarescope DVD/Widescreen/Subtitled) was very washed out the large and well known cast have rarely looked much better in motion. For a flick this fighty there is quite a bit of story behind the deceptively simple premise but unusually for a Taiwanese twisty mystery it all makes sense in a far fetched way and even manages to be funny on purpose. The little known director, a regular collaborator with Jackie Chan (a second fiddle in the shadows as Assistant Director or Executive Director), is on fire here with deft camera placement and beautiful framing adding weight to the drama and clarity in the action, the three leads (Yueh Hua, Hsu Feng and Lo Lieh) particularly have great entrance sequences but throughout the entire cast are at their best. The least creative scene is the climax shot among the oft seen muddy hills of Taiwan which would be fine if they hadn't built expectations just a little higher. This film deserves a much bigger reputation among chop socky fans. Jackie Chan is in this film (around the 20 minute mark) but you don't see his face (he isn't named, his credit is The Masked Fighter) and you can barely tell it really is him. He may have had an influence in the choreography of his own scene but the Wu Tang Collection list him as the Action Director which is a cynical fib. It is the last film he made as a nobody cast member.

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