gordon liu | Kung Fu Addict

DIRECTOR
• Lo Lieh
CAST
• Gordon Liu
• Johnny Wang
• Lo Lieh
• Kara Hui
• Lin Hui-huang
• Hsiao Hou
• Sheng Hsien
• Ching Chu
• Ching Miao
• Yeung Ching-ching

Background: For me this is one of the all time classics. The first time I saw this film was actually alot later than I saw many of the other classic Shaw Brothers movies. While I saw most of the classics in the 80’s, this one I didn’t see for the fist time until 1996. At that time I was in a desperate search for kung fu movies and they were simply not available where I lived.

I got the bright idea to just take whatever few kung fu movies that were at the video store and write to the address of the company on them. No one replied except one. I forget the name of the company but they emailed me a catolog that to me was a gold mine. Fists of the white lotus was the first dvd I ordered. It came on a very low quality VHS. Nevertheless it was one of the best kung fu movies I ever saw.

It has one of my all time favorite openings, using alot of slow motion and freeze frame.

Pros: A lot of great action scenes using a variety of bare fists and weapons. Great characters, especially the villian played by Lo Lieh (who also directed) who played one of the all time greatest kung fu villians. Gordon Liu the master killer himself with one of his all time best preformances. And the nice looking chick Yeung Jing-jing who whips some ass.

Of course Johnny Wang who is the bad guy is every movie ever made it seems. Johnny Wang vs Gordon Liu:

Cons: A little corny at some parts. The whole “Embroidery kung fu” training sequence was a bit corny, but executed well in the end fight. Could have cut out about 5-10 minutes of slow parts.

Bottom Line: All time classic, must own.

Feedback: What is your view? If this is not a must own for you, what is?

Here is the original trailer: