Hung Wei
Shaolin Mantis
Liu Chia-liang is arguably the best martial arts film director of traditional style kung-fu action and was a pioneer in focusing on authentic martial arts techniques and training procedures in his films. This is why stars in his movies looked more like kung-fu experts rather than actors simply going through the motions. So although David Chiang had starred in over 40 films as a martial arts hero, in Shaolin Mantis, where he plays a man who learns martial arts from a praying mantis, then seeks revenge for his wife's death, the movie contains some of Chiang's best fight scenes ever. By casting his brothers Liu Chia-yung and Gordon Liu Chia-hui into the mix, Liu further ensures that the pugilistic mayhem will be even more outstanding.
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The Vengeful Beauty
Of all the many kinds of films Ho Meng-Hua directed for the Shaw Brothers, quite possibly his most internationally popular was The Flying Guillotine. While he did not direct its like-titled sequel, he did helm this great flying guillotine follow-up, which critics considered among his best. It was also one of his last for the studio before continuing his filmmaking career in Taiwan. It stars the gorgeous Chen Ping as the sole survivor of a despotic emperor’s latest foray into decapitation. Fearlessly she takes on the entire flying guillotine gang, despite the fact that she’s pregnant! Lo Lieh, Shaw Brothers’ first international superstar, is brilliant as the vindictive gang boss, while revered action choreographer Tang Chia mounts stupendous battles between the soaring beheaders and an astonishing wushu woman warrior with child.
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The Flying Guillotine
Esteemed director Ho Meng-hua attained cult status among kung-fu film fans in the West with his wild and wacky martial arts hit "The Flying Guillotine". His unique directing approach focused more on the devastating nature of the horrific weapon than the kung-fu fights. One of Shaw Brothers’ biggest kung-fu stars at the time, Chen Kuan-tai plays the leader of the ‘Flying Guillotine Squad’ a group of hand picked killers, commissioned by the Ching Emperor Yung Cheng, that use a deadly, beheading weapon to carry out the emperor's assassination assignments. It's actually based on a true story. Interestingly, the weapon used in the film was a complete fabrication because in real life, no one ever survived to tell what the actual weapon really looked like.
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Apple iTunesThe Flying Guillotine
Esteemed director Ho Meng-hua attained cult status among kung-fu film fans in the West with his wild and wacky martial arts hit "The Flying Guillotine". His unique directing approach focused more on the devastating nature of the horrific weapon than the kung-fu fights. One of Shaw Brothers’ biggest kung-fu stars at the time, Chen Kuan-tai plays the leader of the ‘Flying Guillotine Squad’ a group of hand picked killers, commissioned by the Ching Emperor Yung Cheng, that use a deadly, beheading weapon to carry out the emperor's assassination assignments. It's actually based on a true story. Interestingly, the weapon used in the film was a complete fabrication because in real life, no one ever survived to tell what the actual weapon really looked like.
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Flying Guillotine 2
In 1975, Ho Meng-hua, master of the “esoteric weapon” kung-fu thriller, started an international sensation with The Flying Guillotine. But while he went on to direct such further “crazy cutlery” hits as The Dragon Missile, popular demand insisted upon a sequel to the original decapitator-on-a-chain. So, first, they got a script by a trio of writers, featuring a new, improved “Ring-Chain Flying Guillotine” and the only weapon that can stop it, the “Toothed Wheel”. Next they matched Cheng Kang, the director of their popular true crime thriller The Criminals, with Hua Shan, the director of their superheroes Super Inframan, to double-team the project. Then they cast some of the best martial arts actors in their repertory – all ably choreographed by the often unsung, but universally respected Tang Chia. Finally they filmed Ti Lung as a fugitive from the emperor’s cruelty, against the whole F.G. gang in a blade-on-blade battle to the headless death!
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Black Magic 2
The director, writer and three of the stars from the original blockbuster 'Black Magic', return for a pitched battle between pure good and perverted evil as a zombie master makes men his work drones and women his sex slaves.
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