Chop Socky Cinema

In which David Chiang takes out strongman Bolo Yeung in a literal David and Goliath sequence!  This is - thanks to the stunning choreography - the best scene in the movie and it leaves a lasting impression that resonates long after the movie has  ...

Demons! Ghosts!  Killer Clans!  And one sword to rule them all! If you like your Kung-Fu completely bonkers and all sorts of SPACED OUT, then Holy Flame of the Martial World is the wild tale you have been waiting for!  In it a reunited brother and sister battle all sorts of otherworldly villains on their  ...

Have Sword, Will Travel is highlighted by a rousing finale which makes the journey through this love triangle absolutely worth it.  Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot of drama to get through before we get to all the bloodletting.  This might be a turn off for some fans of wuxia, but the film remains a  ...

Drugs are bad, mmkay? The third film directed by Tong Kai, one of the greatest Kung-Fu choreographers to have worked with the Shaw Brothers, is a masterpiece.  And you thought martial arts couldn’t be moving?!  How wrong you are.  The tragedies in this film are unyielding as the leader of the ...

It’s monkey style kung-fu versus snake style in Sammo Hung’s highly entertaining Knockabout, a comical slick of chop socky which will have you laughing in no time.The comedy is what happens when two unfortunate con artists ...

In which the 18 legendary weapons of China are dispatched to put an end to the bullet! Lei Kung (Liu Chia-Liang) is acting strangely.  The Boxer rebellion is in full swing and several clans have sworn to train students ways in which to defeat the gun.  This includes use of the supernatural.  Anything is in  ...

In which a wall of 12 monks stacked on each others’ shoulders forces Derek Yee to perform the human corkscrew maneuver to slide right past them! Opening with a surprise attack by four ninja-dressed assassins, one courier's mission goes tits up really quickly and all ...

The martial arts hijinks continue with the introduction of the “3 Holy Fools” who raise one of the two newborn sons destined to be emperor some day.  Shaolin Prince is an epically cool late-era Shaw Brothers offering that should have been better received than it was back in 1982 when it was originally  ...

In which an abacus becomes a weapon! Inviting a muscle-strapped cat named the ‘Spearman’ (Lung Tung Sheng) to a peace party is not a good idea.  Okay, sure,  the various members of the ‘Iron Flag’ clan have their reasons not to trust the criminal-minded ‘Eagles’, but the strongarm they hired is not ...

New Fist of Fury could have been so much better.  Sure, it was the film that began to launch its star, Jackie Chan, into the martial arts stratosphere but it’s not nearly as smooth sailing as the original film, made 5 years earlier, by the same director,  Lo Wei, who was convinced Jackie was the  ...