The Shaw Scope Volume 3 box set has several wuxia films by Chor Yuen that star Ti Lung. In this one, he plays Zhao Wuji, a swordsman who learns that his father has been killed. He’s so upset — and ready for revenge — that he cancels his wedding and gets pulled into a battle between two families, the Tang Family Sect led by Master Tang Ao (Yueh Hua) and his own family’s Zhao Clan who have no successor to his father, as he had hidden his will in a jade tiger that has been lost.

Chor Yuen made many of Gu Long’s books into movies, but this film has the author writing the screenplay which comes from his work The White Jade Tiger. 

How important was Zhao Wuji’s wedding anyways? After all, he was dueling with Dugu Sheng (Norman Chu) beforehand, a man who respected that he was about to be wed, while our hero claims that he would rather die a bachelor and not have a widow. He then takes on the name Shangguan Ren and becomes part of the Tang Family Sect, getting to know his father’s murderer and somehow not hating him as much as he would have suspected.

As much as this is a talky tale filled with twists and turns, it has Master Lu in it, a man so deadly that he uses his glass eyeballs as weapons. He has exploding eyeballs. Let that wash over you.

That said, this is probably not a good first time Shaw Brothers watch. You need to be a bit more into these films, know the actors and the reasons, and then you’ll enjoy this more than someone who hasn’t had a steady relationship with these movies.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of Jade Tiger as well as commentary by critic Ian Jane and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

Clans of Intrigue is based on the book Fragrance in the Sea of Blood, which is part of Gu Long’s Chu Liuxiang novel series. The first of these stories to be adapted by Shaw Brothers, with Chor Yuen directing and Ti Lung as Chu Liuxiang. Legend of the Bat and Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman would follow this movie, as well as several other appearances of this character in other movies.

After three martial artists are poisoned using the Holy Water Palace’s Heaven’s One Holy Water has been stolen, it’s determined that only one man could be so deadly and so good of a thief to pull this off: Chu Liuxiang. At least that’s what Kung Nan-Yen (Nora Miao) believes, but she gives our hero one month to clear his name.

Chor Yuen made five movies in 1977: Jade Tiger, Death Duel, Pursuit of Vengeance, The Sentimental Swordsman and this movie. He’d repeat that the following year before taking it easy in 1979 and 1980, only making four movies in both of those years. Not only was he busy, he also made some great films.

This has the feel of a detective tale, as our hero must go through each suspect and attempt to discover who could have stolen the Magic Water and who was also skilled enough to kill three martial arts masters. Chu Liuxiang must also deal with all of the other fighters who believe that he’s the murderer and don’t want to wait for revenge.

You can read Jenn Upton’s review of this movie here.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Three box set has a brand new 2K restoration of Clans of Intrigue as well as commentary by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of China; interviews with stuntwoman Sharon Yeung, film historian Bede Chang and film critic Law Kar and a trailer.

You can get this set from MVD.

Kim Ki-young made horror films after studying to be a dentist and making propaganda movies. His 1960 movie, The Housemaid, is considered to be one of the best Korean films ever. Today, filmmakers like Im Sang-soo, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook proclaim his films like Woman of Fire, Insect Woman, Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death and this movie. When Youn Yuh-jung won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Minari, she brought up Kim Ki-young in her speech and said that he was a genius.

There’s an island in legend called Parang where the men die after they reproduce, leaving behind a country of women. Marketing manager Seon Woo-hyeon (Kim Chung-chui) has named a new resort after this place and plans a boat trip to the island that inspired it for the media but journalist Cheon Nam-seok (Choi Yun-seok) refuses to go as he believes that Parang is real. After the two go for a drink, Cheon Nam-seok disappears and Seon Woo-hyeon is blamed for his death. To clear his name, he goes to Parang to discover what it’s really like.

Imagine what happens when he finds a pagan society that is run by women, all of them the widows of men lost to the sea. Chun’s past is strange, as his father disappeared after first seeing the island, his mother committed suicide after being taken advantage of by an exorcist and the exorcist’s daughter stole money so he could escape the island, if not his deadly destiny. As for her, she was tied to rocks on the beach and left to die.

There’s so much mystery in this that the central murder no longer matters. There’s a strange shaman, women desperate to be with child, a water demon, pollution, necrophilia and so much more. This isn’t a sit back and relax movie. It must be devoured and explored.

Io Island is part of the new Severin box set, All the Haunts Be Ours Volume 2. It has extras including an audio commentary by archivist and Korean film historian Ariel Schudson and Dr. Hyunseon Lee On Shamanism in Korean visual culture. There is also a short, The Present.

You can order this set from Severin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the next several days, I’ll be covering movies either directed by Menahem Golan or produced by Golan and Globus before they bought Cannon.

Golan and Globus also produced a Western, God’s Gun, starring Leif Garrett and Lee Van Cleef in which Garrett was mentored by Cleef. The producers paid Garrett to stay in Israel for two months until filming began on that movie, which was released before this.

Kid Vengeance stars both of them but in totally different roles, as Garrett is Tom, who watched Van Cleef’s McClain murder most of his immediate family, getting gang member Jesus (John Marley) to shoot dad (David Loden), before he rapes and murders mom (Dalia Penn) and kidnaps sister Lisa (Glynnis O’Connor). Once he comes out of hiding, Tom makes his way across the plains and like some tween slasher antagonist, he kills them all off, one by one, by arrow, by scorpion, by snake, bye bye.

Instead of Gianfranco Parolini, this was directed by Joseph Manduke, who made the TV movie Beatlemania and Omega Syndrome. It was written by Ken Globus, who also wrote the Golan/Globus movies Operation Thunderbolt and Lupo! and was on second unit for their films The Highway Queen, The Passover Plot and Kazablan. He was joined by writers Bud Robbins and James Telfer.

Isaac (Jim Brown) helps Tom learn how to be a man, but if you’re hoping for a Jim Brown heroic role, this isn’t it. This is not a sequel to Take a Hard Ride, despite what you may have heard. Maybe watch that instead.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

Also known as Bruce’s Revenge, Return of Fists of Fury and Ninja vs. Bruce Lee, this was made as Zhong lie Jing wu men. It super stars — that’s what they said — Bruce Le as Bruce Wong, who comes to Manila to visit his uncle who has apparently forgotten and just left home. So he wanders the streets and meets a young thief named Piggy and save a girl from the deadliest pimp in the Philippines, Mr. Cross.

One of the women Bruce saves is his cousin, who runs a martial arts school with his other cousin. He helps them fight Mr. Cross, who has one henchman who is such a gay stereotype that even far right people will be offended by this movie’s homophobia. Anyways, Bruce shuts almost everything down, so the bad guys hire a killer named Sakata to kill everyone, starting with his male cousin,.

This movie has an instrumental version of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” that completely made me insane, screaming out the lyrics. “I’m standing on the edge of time, I’ve walked away when love was mine, Caught up in a world of uphill climbing, the tears are in my mind and nothing is rhyming.”

Also: This ends with the police all coming to bust up the final fight between Mr. Cross, Sakta, Sakata’s brother, a hundred goons and Bruce. Piggy watches, all alone on the beach, crying, realizing that he will forever be alone. So…an unhappy ending?

If you were Asian, did martial arts and looked like Bruce Lee with aviator sunglasses on, you always had a job in 1977.

Director Joseph Velasco also went by Joseph Kong and made Bruce’s Secret Kung Fu,. Thundering Ninja, The Clones of Bruce Lee, Treasure of Bruce Lee, The Young Dragon, Enter the Game of Death, Bruce’s Deadly Fingers, Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen and Kung Fu Master: Bruce Lee Style. He made more off Bruce Lee than Bruce Lee made off of Bruce Lee.

You can watch this on Daily Motion.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

It’s bad enough in these movies that the antagonists keep burning down the Shaolin temple. Now, the villains are working with the Russians, who bring General Tolstoy (Roy Horan) and his guns to battle their fists. All because China and Russia are trying to sign a peace treaty and show people want non-stop war and an invasion of Manchuria.

Yet for all I know about the martial world, I had no idea what a snuff bottle was of what it has to do with this movie. Well, I learned.

Snuff bottles were used during this time to hold powdered tobacco, which was illegal. However, snuff was used as a remedy for colds, headaches and stomach disorders. It was carried in a small bottle, instead of a box like in Europe. They were pieces of fine art and some even had painting inside the bottle.

Because the Russians can’t tell the Chinese factions apart, the bad guys show them a snuff bottle when they meet so they don’t fight. I guess that makes sense and is also kind of racist.

The hero is John Liu, who would one day be New York Ninja, Dragon Blood, Ninja In the Claws of the CIA and the hero who is there when Zen Kwan Do Strikes Paris. He gets to battle Hwang Jang Lee, all choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping. There’s also another good guy, Kao (Yip Fei-Yang), who is the master of daggers and a child thief named Xiao (Wong Yat Lung).

Kind of cool to see foreign bad guys in the time before Hong Kong movies became about the present and not the past. And now, you too know what a snuff bottle is.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As the journey through Cannon continues, this week we’re exploring the films of 21st Century Film Corporation, which would be the company that Menahem Golan would take over after Cannon. Formed by Tom Ward and Art Schweitzer in 1971 (or 1976, there are some disputed expert opinions), 21st Century had a great logo and released some wild stuff.

What is a mystagogue? According to Wikipedia, it’s “A mystagogue is a person who initiates others into mystic beliefs, and an educator or person who has knowledge of the sacred mysteries of a belief system.”

Fang Shao Ching (Carter Wong) has one of those mystagogues. His blind teacher refuses to reveal the 18th secret move to him as he’s too impatient. That said, if a martial artist uses the 18th strike, it doesn’t just kill their opponent. They die as a result of the blow as well. So maybe the teacher is right to not share this strike.

Soon, Fang Shao Ching and his sister Fang Ping (Feng Hsu) must protect a prince from the Ching government, which has taken over. They’ve sent many killers to murder him, including Yeun Ming (Chang Yi), who has perhaps the greatest weapon since the flying guillotine. He has these magnetic knives called the Bloody Birds that can either be knives, spinning blades, boomerangs, bombs or even drills that go right through flesh.

Sure, the fighting isn’t the best, but the main bad guy has skin that can’t be pierced and a throne that shoots bullets. Plus, you get rooms full of traps and I love when kung fu meets dungeon crawling. It’s no Shaw Brothers but is still pretty fun.

According to Temple of Schlock, this was originally called Da Mo Mi Zong and first played in 1976. It was first released in the U.S. by Headliner Productions as Mystagogue Superman and it as played as Killer Fists and 18 Shaolin Disciples.

You can watch this on YouTube.