By 1977 Golden Harvest had slowly begun to bridge out from martial arts films with the Hui Brothers and a few romances but most of their chips were still on action films with Lo Wei and Huang Feng directing most of them. Huang had in particular teamed up with Angela Mao as an actress and Sammo Hung as the action choreographer. Sammo had put together his team that was to stick with him for years - some becoming stars or directors or choreographers. The gang is all here in small roles - Mang Hoi, Yuen Biao, Fung Hak-on, Peter Chan Lung, Mars, Chung Fat, Billy Chan, Yuen Wah, Stephen Tung-wai and Lam Ching-ying. There are some other big names here as well that I will get to later. This is chock full of talent that will explode in the 1980s and 90's What the film doesn't have is a single female actress. But then much of it takes place in a Shaolin Temple.


I was lucky enough to see this in the new Blue Ray version and wow. It looks stunning with beautiful colors popping out. Seeing one of these early Golden Harvest films looking this good is a treat. All the others that I have seen have been battered and bruised around a bit. But it is a surprising choice to have gotten the royal treatment because I don't think this is a well known film and had any reputation - perhaps because so few people had seen it and certainly didn't see it looking like this. It is an important film in Sammo's career. He had been choreographing practically all of Golden Harvest's films - even ones like Private Eyes and The Hand of Death for John Woo - when did he sleep. And his roles got bigger and bigger in a few films but often he was still the henchman who would get killed by the end. Here he has a great role - not the lead - but his villain pretty much steals the show. In his following film The Iron Fisted Monk, he not only directed it but had the lead role. He worked his way up over a bunch of years. Remember that Sammo had been trained from childhood to be in Chinese Opera. A lot of those skills came in handy but it was not martial arts. He learned all that and how to choreograph as he went along.


This may be a bit overly long at almost 110 minutes but it never felt that way to me. It all looked so good. GH was still basically trying to emulate Shaw with the gorgeous sets (shot in Korea), a myriad of extras, a film about the Shaolin Temple and some great kung-fu action. It also has a few Ex-Shaw stars - Chan Sing playing a villain again, Wang Hsieh who strangely doesn't stick around for long, Kwan Shan - ex matinee idol, James Tin Chuen and Yen Shi-kwan as a villain of course. Like I said, it is loaded with talent. As to the plot, well lets say we have seen it a few times.


Chen Sing is a Manchu Prince and a compulsive collector like a lot of us. Of martial arts manuals. He goes to all the martial arts schools and politely asks for their special home-brewed martial arts manuals. When they decline, he kills them. That may be taking collecting too far but there was no Ebay back then. As his enforcer he has Sammo, a monk from Tibet who is pretty handy playing the cymbals and with his bushy eye-brows, bald pate and fierce moustache is a bit scary. Razor sharp cymbals. That can be used to cut heads off like the flying guillotine but comes in useful in close contact fighting as well. Sammo is over the top mean with one of those evil Hong Kong laughs we know so well. One family refuses and so they pay them a house visit. Kwan Shan runs the school along with his son James Tin Chuen.  Tin Chuen has to go on the run with Sammo and Yen Shi-kwan after him. He finds sanctuary with a lone monk (Chin Kang aka King Kong) who protects him. This is really the highlight of the film as his fight with Sammo is a classic. Beautifully choreographed.


Next up for the Prince is the Shaolin Temple which refuses to hand over their manuals. I loved this whole section with the monks taking positions and showing forms all like a dance as they jump over one another with astonishing grace. More action to come of course with Casanova Wong as a Warrior Monk doing his astonishing leg kicks as Koreans did the best. I saw reviews with people calling this boring and yes there are chunks that go by with no action but something called plot is happening. I would love to see all those early GH films get this treatment.

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