It begins with the onstage Chinese opera. The rich guy in the audience lusts for the female lead despite his wife totally aware of it. He also has Chinese antiquities he is selling to the evil Japanese. The female lead is a spy out to get treasures from him.
The actors and crew have substantial film credits but their names are not well known even by a hard core fan of the genre like me. I was surprised to find this is an above average martial arts movie from Taiwan in 1975. This movie has a real script, a real story was told, and it has good fights. The first two fights are simple hand to hand brawls. The expected big final fight was particularly well done. There was a gun in the final fight and I have often written that guns have no place in these movies. Nevertheless, even that part was well choreographed with six shots and done.
My copy is the "Brooklyn Zu" DVD release and it is doubled with 1983 "7 Star Grand Mantis". For the record, Brooklyn, New York does not have a zoo. It also does not have a "Zu". The DVD is not wide screen but instead in a square format typical of old VHS tapes. In fact, it has a title screen with "© 1981 Ocean Shores so VHS was definitely the source. There is no restoration but the colors are bright and the scratches minimal. It is dubbed in English. I don't recognize the voices but they are well done in that they are not cartoonish or otherwise annoying.
I first watched this movie almost four years ago and wrote an enthusiastic review. I placed the movie on my "Watch Again" list. Sometimes I watch movies again because they are good. This time it was to compare. There have been movies I watched once and did not like but subsequently liked and the opposite. The decision is that I rate it the same as my first viewing. The final fight takes the movie up a notch.
