Chop Socky Cinema

Okay, okay. So, Dirty Ho is unfortunately titled but that doesn’t stop this kung fu film from being a masteract in comedy and martial arts choreography and, thanks to the usual high production values of Shaw Brothers, it has aged tremendously well. Directed by Lau Kar-leung and starring  ...

It’s East vs East in this Martial Arts tournament movie by way of an arranged marriage! Heroes of the East, directed by Lau Kar-Leung and filmed by Arthur Wong, focuses on an arranged marriage between a student of Kung Fu and the Japanese daughter of one of his father’s business  ...

The Deadly Venoms return! Bean curds; a dyeing mill; a fighting school. These are the common denominators when fighting off a horde of Ching soldiers in director Chang Cheh’s Shaolin Rescuers, a chopsocky flick from 1979 in which Jason Pai Piao and the one and only Venom  ...

In which the white-haired supervillain somehow returns to rain down even more destruction upon the disciples of Shaolin! Also known as Slice Of Death, Shaolin Abbot proves that David Chiang is not to be messed with. Whether he is playing b...

Not the eyes! Not the eyes! Oh, yes, it’s a brutal jab to the eyes which does the trick in Executioners From Shaolin, a multi-generational chop socky revenge tale which is absolutely unforgettable for a number of dynamic filmmaking reasons ...

It’s time to enter the bizarro world, my Chopsocky connoisseurs! This is a world where, in the wake of Bruce Lee’s death, many film companies - including Golden Harvest, the production company that launched Lee into the world’s consciousness with Fist of Fury, The Big Boss, and Way of the Dragon - started  ...

Clan Of The White Lotus is one of the Shaw Brothers finest efforts in comedy and in kung-fu. It is endlessly entertaining and full of some awesome choreography, thanks to the work of by the one and only Liu Chia-Lian, and a wonderfully strange performance from its director (Lo Lieh) as Pak Mei -The White  ...

It’s no stretch of the imagination to state that Director Lau Kar-Leung’s Challenge of the Masters is a revolutionary statement of how martial arts movies ought to be done. The resulting film is an impressive feat, with strong character development for its main character and a training segment which would be tirelessly  ...

Opening with a wicked duel to the supposed death between Tuan Changqing (Ti Lung), the Deadly Breaking Sword, and Lian San (Michael Chan), the Throat Piercing Halberd, The Deadly Breaking Sword is a wuxia for the ages.  It’s colorful with its strong production values and deadly with the art on display in  ...

It is no understatement to suggest that Bruce Lee’s return to Hong Kong, after America refused to make him a star, was the best thing for his career.  Lee was pissed off; frustrated by Hollywood’s inherent racism and refusal to put any faith in the idea that an Asian could ever carry a profitable film ...