This is the film that gets credited as starting the Kung Fu craze of the ‘70s; although I’d argue that it merely cashed in on the success of the Kung Fu TV series that was on the air six months before this reached US cinemas. It did show there was a big screen market for this kind of thing and it opened the floodgates for the Asian movies that followed.
It’s the old rival martial arts schools story that features some spectacular fight sequences, although many have an over reliance on wire work. The editing is a little choppy at times, not so much in the fights, which flow quite nicely, but in the scene transitions. There are times where it takes a minute or two before you realise what character you’re with and where they are.
The film features an abundance of cool bad guys, from the evil martial arts master and his son, to some particularly nasty Japanese hired assassins. They all get there comeuppance by the end of the movie, most at the hands of the hero. The best scene though is a fight in the dark that doesn’t even feature the good guy. It’s a scene that is superbly atmospheric and also manages to do the impossible and humanise the previously insidious villain.
