Directed by: Gordon Liu
Starring: Gordon Liu, Adam Cheng, Hoi-Shan Kwan
Apparently you just can’t go wrong with a Gordon Liu film, especially if he’s playing a Shaolin monk of some sort in it. Oh, who am I kidding, he plays the exact same character in EVERY movie. Which is not a bad thing. Not at all.
In the city, there are two prestigious schools of kung fu, the Shaolin, who specialize in a powerful striking style, and the Wu Tang, who are experts of the sword. When they both refuse to teach the governor of the town their styles (which I think has something to do with Chinese history and politics that I don’t know the backstory to), he poisons the head of the Wu Tang and gets the two schools to go at each other’s throats. He arranges a duel to the death between the two greatest pupils of the styles, who just happen to be good friends who don’t particularly want to fight to the death.
The choreography in this film is really good, which, again, is as obvious as saying that Gordon Liu is in it. It’s well-paced with plenty of action sequences (which is the only essential thing in a kung fu movie), and the two main characters are surprisingly well-developed. All in all, definitely one to look out for.
Films in Boxes 
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