In the final days of the IMDb Horror board (RIP) an IMDber did a thread about Shaw Brothers flicks they had recently seen,and mentioned an SB title that has only come out in Germany with Eng Subs. Making a note of this ages ago,I decided after picking up SB's magical The Love Eterne (1963) that I'd double-bill it by picking up a medallion.
View on the film:
Taking a traditional episodic outline of the hero travelling/fighting across towns to get hold of each medallion, the screenplay by co-writer/(with Di-Yi Chen) director Kang Cheng finds a distinctive edge by dipping into the supernatural, via Miao Lung crossing swords with leaders who have rapid healing ability and unbreakable swords. Hilarious slapping a written-coda on the ending for what would have been expensive scenes to film, (Run Run lets no one run the budget over!) the writers slice the action episodes with a (unintended?) comedic side, highlighted in Miao Lung's attempt to get Chin Suo to agree to help her not die from poison.
Sending Lung and all the other warriors leaping in the air, director Kang Cheng whips up a classic SB stylisation with incredibly fluid,scatter-gun panning shots,edited with a nail gun that gives each of Lung's fights a frantic atmosphere, with the clashing of swords keeping him and the rival fighter on edge. Following the supernatural swipe of the script, Cheng gives the fight scenes a horror glaze of red candle wax blood being dabbed across the screen from each finishing move Lung delivers to collect the next of the twelve medallions.
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