Killer from Above

                                                   

Director: Law Chi
Year: 1977
Rating: 6.0

In Mandarin with subs

Sorry for the quality of the photos but they came from the video.

This old school kung fu film from Taiwan has a good mix of ex Shaw Brothers and Taiwanese people both in front of and behind the camera. Nice to see a film with wires only used for jumping but keeping the action clean, simple and fast. Behind the camera is director Law Chi who directed over fifty films - many of them martial arts - outside of the big studios and Chan Chuen choreographs the action. He along with Lau Kar-wing were behind the action in a few Shaw films - King Boxer, The Swift Knight, The Boxer from Shantung - before he left Shaw and worked on a number of the Angela Mao films. In front of the camera there is Lo Lieh, Carter Wong, Chang Yi, Wang Ping and Cliff Lok. There is nothing fancy here. Not the action and not the sets - but the plot is actually a little more interesting than the typical revenge film. Though of course revenge is in there somewhere.



Right out of the shoot, Lo Lieh meets a man on the street and tells him "Prepare yourself for the afterlife" and follows up on that. Then to a fancy brothel where a man is surrounded by a few beauties and kills him as well. This upsets the Martial Arts Council and they give Carter the duty of finding this killer and bringing him to justice. At this point, we assume Lo Lieh is the bad guy as he has been in so many films and that Carter is the good guy as he has been in many films. Nope. Quite the opposite. They put a 10,000 taels in gold reward to anyone who brings him in. This gets the professional killers busy tracking him down. All they know is that he wears a black straw hat and has a short sword. That actually makes him fairly recognizable and the comic Mutt and Jeff relief try and capture him but they are not too good at this and Lo Lieh easily defeats them but lets him go. They are so grateful that they stick around helping him for the rest of the film.



Next up is a tricky trap - a honey pot of sorts. Wang Ping is set upon by a group of men and Lo Lieh rescues her and takes her to a shelter - whereupon the same men show up and fight him - and Wang stabs him in the back. They introduce themselves as Smiling Killer (Chang Yi) and Widow Spider. But this is actually his plan - to be captured and taken to the headquarters of Carter. Because his master is Carter's brother and has disappeared but not before writing a message and sending it into the river where by happenstance Lo Lieh finds it. It tells of some conspiracy to kill all the martial arts masters.  Cliff Lok shows up to rescue him but again he has to allow himself to be captured. So, a little more complicated than normal. Lots of betrayals, traps and a ton of fights. No time for any romance or hanky-panky. Just the facts, Ma'am.