Dreadnaught A.K.A. Yong zhe wu ju (1981)

A Chinese kung fu directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Yuen Biao and Kwan Tak-hing.
A fighter's wife who used to wear bells was killed in an ambush at a restaurant, causing him to become evil. He is hiding out with an opera troupe and wants to kill a cowardly man who runs a laundry business.
I was expecting another run of the mill kung fu snoozer, but this was worthwhile. The plot was a little convoluted (aren't they always?) but had a reason for why the villain went evil. Not many films explain why the bad guy is bad. The casting for him and the hero was great. Biao was the hero and Tak-hing was the teacher (his constant role). The villain doesn't even have a wikipedia page, but he was perfect for the part. There were a few too many other characters, but that's another staple of the genre that goes with the unnecessary plot points. A little bit of crappy acting is yet another of the unavoidable kung fu cliches, but the main characters did a great job. I can't really say much about the dialogue, but I found good subtitles. Sets and costumes looked extremely recycled, like every kung fu flick ever made shared them. The exception was the dog costume for the lion dance scenes. The choreography for those and the fights was done exceptionally well. This is not just because it looks good, but because of context and use of props and special effects. It wasn't just "Let's fight!", but a lion dance competition fight, accidentally showing eagle claw techniques in front of the teacher, etc. I also liked the use of Hong Kong wire and wuxia style long sleeve weapons. The editing was all very quick and the camera-work straight forward, but I could see what was going on and there were a few creative angles to give context to some situations like when the killer scales an alley wall. One of my least favorite kung fu cliches is bad sound and this had it. I swear every sound was peaking the levels, with most being distorted. IMDb has a rating of 7.5/10 listed for this, AllMovie has 0/5 AllMovie rating with 3.5/5 user rating and Rotten Tomatoes has 85% Audience Score. 57.5% average seems really low to me and all because of the zero from AllMovie. I rate this good because I'm so tired of kung fu flicks that it hurts and even I liked it. Watch this if you're just as bored with whoosh, swack and fighting for no reason.