DVD Reviews
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- By Loron Hays
In which the five venoms return to save China from mass-starvation as ruthless thugs take over the land, leaving thousands of refugees in their wake! Directed by Chang Cheh and featuring explosive fight sequences throughout, The Rebel Intruders presents ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 4: The Rebel Intruders (1980)
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- By Loron Hays
In which fight choreographer (and soon-to-be director) Sammo Hung, making his last film with his mentor, director Huang Feng (Lady Whirlwind, Hapkido), gets a headlining part as a mad monk who wields two golden cymbals as flying guillotines. How deliciously evil!!! The Shaolin Plot, while 15 minutes too long, is one hell of a ...
Read more: The Shaolin Plot (1977) - Blu-ray Limited Edition
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- By Loron Hays
There’s no return to normal cinema viewing after being exposed to ANY of director Yuen Woo-ping’s films. This is an indisputable fact. While most audiences know the director’s work 1977’s Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and 1978’s The Drunken Master due to his collaborations with a young ...
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- By Loron Hays
Opening with the capture and the lopping off of legs and arms for the wife and son of To Tin Tao (Chen Kuan-tai), Crippled Avengers leaves quite the impression. First, you might feel sympathy for To Tin Tao but, as he is skilled in tiger arts, he quickly disperses the would-be assassins and, turning to his now crippled son ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Chang Cheh: Crippled Avengers (1978) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
In which the IRON MAIDEN is introduced as a torture device and several sparkling costumed fights take place while standing on walls! Chang Cheh’s The Five Venoms is already a renowned cult classic and fans of chop socky flicks know the reasons ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Chang Cheh: The Five Venoms (1978) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
In which an opening credits lion dance against a blazing white backdrop sets the rules of this challenge! Martial Club, courtesy of 88 Films, has arrived! Directed by Lau Kar Leung and featuring Gordon Liu as Wong Fei Hung (again), Martial Club is a film which seems to be forgotten by many ...
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- By Loron Hays
No, not the Jet Li film. We aren’t quite there yet, Chop Socky Cretins. This film, produced by Shaw Brothers, assembles a new wave of fighters to assist freedom fighters after the destruction of the Henan monastery. Due to the changing times, we have fan favorites Ti Lung, Wang Chung, and David Chiang playing ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Chang Cheh: Shaolin Temple (1976) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
In which Bryan Leung’s ponytail ruthlessly kills! It’s no secret that director Chang Cheh and wuxia screenwriter I Kuang, who wrote over 300 screenplays for the Shaw Brothers, revolutionized the action films coming out of Hong Kong. Especially for Shaw Brothers, Cheh especially was changing the face of their heroes ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Chang Cheh: Five Shaolin Masters (1974) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
Capitalizing on the death of Bruce Lee has never been so damn out of control as the Special Branch of Investigations takes brain tissue samples from Bruce Lee, immediately after his death, and hires a mad scientist (Jon T. Benn from Way Of The Dragon and Jet Li’s Fearless) to create three clones of the deceased ...
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
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- By Loron Hays
It’s a rags-to-riches story by way of the fist! Directed by Chang Cheh and Pao Hsueh Li and featuring a stellar performance from Chen Kuan Tai as Ma Yung Chen, who heads to the big city seeking his own path to fortune and fame, this Hong Kong gangster epic (clocking in at almost 2 and a half ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents: The Basher Box - Chinatown Kid - Bluray
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- By Loron Hays
In which Jackie Chan takes down a hovercraft trashing the streets of NYC with an antique samurai sword while driving a doorless Lamborghini Countach (with a broken ankle)! For many Americans, Rumble In The Bronx was their first taste of Chan’s explosive style of fighting when it came to his choreography and his stunts, with Chan performing most of them ...
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- By Loron Hays
It’s a rags-to-riches story by way of the fist! Directed by Chang Cheh and Pao Hsueh Li and featuring a stellar performance from Chen Kuan Tai as Ma Yung Chen, who heads to the big city seeking his own path to fortune and fame, this Hong Kong gangster epic (clocking in at almost 2 and a half ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents: The Basher Box - The Boxer From Shantung - Bluray
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- By Loron Hays
In which some very nimble fingers pluck out a man’s eyeballs from their sockets! King Boxer remains a powerhouse of hard-hitting kung-fu action. It is, at once, a full force blast of cinematic energy that hits you square in the jaw. This iconic movie, released in the early 1970s, takes no prisoners as ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents: The Basher Box - King Boxer Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Lau Kar-Leung: Dirty Ho (1979) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Presents | Four Films By Lau Kar-Leung: Heroes of the East (1978) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Shaolin Rescuers (1979) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
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...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Shaolin Abbot (1979) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Clan of the White Lotus (1980) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979) - Blu-ray
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- By Loron Hays
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 ...
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- By Loron Hays
In which the Shaw Brothers go gonzo for pulp fiction, combining a magical spider whose webs capture foes and then melt their faces right off their skulls! Alongside some limited martial arts mayhem, The Web of Death is an entertaining fantastical journey as choreographers Tang Chia and Yuen Cheung-yan ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Soul of the Sword (1978) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Don’t let those colored backgrounds fool you one bit. The cast - or half of it - might stand stoically as the credits roll in the beginning of Life Gamble, but this wuxia feels a bit odd after that. This film’s action is slow to boil, saving the best bits - which involve a parade of flags flying high against the brilliant ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Life Gamble (1978) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
And so arrives Hong Kong legend Derek Yee. It is here, in the role of the third master as a 20-year-old, where the young actor absolutely delivers a memorable role as the greatest sword master in the world . . . even if he is in disguise as a lowly worker in a whorehouse due to the shame he feels about his ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: Death Duel (1977) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Maybe I am getting a bit soft in my old age, but I was completely wrong in my original opinion of this direct-to-video sequel. The Man With The Iron Fists 2 does exactly what it needs to do in continuing the story of Thaddeus, the blacksmith blessed with some deeply mystical martial arts skills. It’s not better than what ...
Read more: The Big Boss (Fists of Fury) (2015) - 4K UHD Review
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- By Loron Hays
Maybe I am getting a bit soft in my old age, but I was completely wrong in my original opinion of this direct-to-video sequel. The Man With The Iron Fists 2 does exactly what it needs to do in continuing the story of Thaddeus, the blacksmith blessed with some deeply mystical martial arts skills. It’s not better than what ...
Read more: The Man With the Iron Fists 2 (2015) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Battles on (and below) bridges! Awesome swordplay in familiar Shaw Brothers’ sets! Nunchuck stabbings! And the fabulous Chen Ping kicking all sorts of ass as The Bloody Hibiscus! The Vengeful Beauty, director Ho Meng-hua’s follow-up after the smashing success of The Flying Guillotine, might ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: The Vengeful Beauty (1978) - Blu-ray Review
- Details
- By Loron Hays
In which the Shaw Brothers go gonzo for pulp fiction, combining a magical spider whose webs capture foes and then melt their faces right off their skulls! Alongside some limited martial arts mayhem, The Web of Death is an entertaining fantastical journey as choreographers Tang Chia and Yuen Cheung-yan ...
Read more: Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 3: The Web of Death (1976) - Blu-ray Review
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Movie Reviews
Morbidly Hollywood
- Colorado Street Suicide Bridge
- Death of a Princess - The Story of Grace Kelly's Fatal Car Crash
- Joaquin Phoenix 911 Call - River Phoenix - Viper Room
- Screen Legend Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79
- Suicide and the Hollywood Sign - The Girl Who Jumped from the Hollywood Sign
- The Amityville Horror House
- The Black Dahlia Murder - The Death of Elizabeth Short
- The Death of Actress Jane Russell
- The Death of Brandon Lee
- The Death of Chris Farley
- The Death of Dominique Dunne
- The Death of George Reeves - the Original Superman