The legendary Pai Mei destroys Shaolin temple and sends the monks fleeing. One of the monks who specializes in tiger claw meets a woman who specializes in crane style. They have a son and the father goes off to get revenge on Pai Mei while the son learns crane style from his mother. Eventually, the father stops returning from his battles and the son finds an incomplete book of tiger style to learn from before facing Pai Mei himself.
Lots of fighting and styles to talk about. The plot initially seemed to get bogged down in the wedding section, but picked up into... Nobody would ever guess... Revenge! The son was an interesting character because his mother dressed him as a female and there was a comic relief character in the beginning who got lost around the middle. Everyone else was exactly as expected. The English subtitled dialogue did not hold my interest much, but there was tons of discussion on who is the better fighter and which animal style they used. Pai Mei was acted just like in Kill Bill and all of the other kung fu films I've seen. He didn't flip his beard though. The fighting is what to watch this for. I would seriously recommend skipping the first half for this reason. The training for rematches reminded me of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002). We also had Pai Mei and tiger-crane style, clearly referenced in Kill Bill. One of the main plot points in Pai Mei's fights was that he would grab the opponent's foot with his dick. The sets looked expensive and there were lots of locations like boats, towns, temples, forests, the family's home... I noticed the son's costume most because he was dressed like a girl. Camera-work followed the old kung fu standard, but was not bad. I can see everything that's happening in these old Chinese flicks, unlike some more modern films. There weren't special effects like flying or energy blasts, just standard editing cuts during some sections of the fights that would be physically impossible otherwise. The audio was not bad, but in Chinese and seemed to follow the early kung fu trend of not having enough music. IMDb has a 7.1/10 rating listed, AllMovie has 2.5/5 AllMovie rating with 3.5/5 user ratings and Rotten Tomatoes lists 68% audience score for an average of 64.75%. I think an F grade is a little bit low and again, it's because AllMovie rated extremely low. This is actually better than Fist of Fury, but not good enough to get a green rating. I rate it adequate and would recommend it for hardcore kung fu fans.
