6/10
A bit above average but only for hard core fans of the genre
18 September 2019
The movie opens with demonstrations at the martial arts school. Next, in the dark, our hero Charles Heung returns to town and finds his uncle stabbed to death. He is falsely accused, flees, and takes refuge at the home of the guy who owns the casino. A suspicious gambler wins big and Charles follows him, suspecting he is the real killer. It gets complicated after that.

I first tried to watch this movie about four years ago but failed because the copy was poor to the point where I could not see anything of two fights in the darkness. I since came across a better quality copy. It is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as wide screen with English dialog. If you come across this movie make sure you get the wide screen version rather than the 4:3 video. It is notable that the action director was the great Yuen Wo-Ping and many others of the clan appear as stunt men.

1973 was Charles Heung Wah-Jeung's breakout year for martial arts movies. He starred in no less than 6 movies that year. I also reviewed "The Big Fellow" and "End of the Wicked Tigers" and "The Magnificent Boxer" and "Beba, the Mermaid" and rated them all just average. I consider his high point as a martial arts actor in "Goose Boxer". I reviewed and rated that movie as one of my favorites of 1978. Charles went on to be a big name producer of Win's Entertainment and China Star Entertainment Group. His personal life is linked to one of China's biggest organized crime groups, the Sun Yee On triad. Charles has often denied involvement with triads. There is plenty of information about this online so I will not repeat any of it. If you are interested I recommend starting with his biography on Wikipedia. Charles is also a philanthropist and involved in poverty relief, natural disaster assistance, and free cataract surgery for seniors.

I rate this movie a tad above average for the year and genre and recommend it for hard core fans of the genre.
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