If American audiences know director Lau Kar-leung and star Gordon Liu for anything, it would be this movie. A lot of credit for that goes to the Wu-Tang Clan, who referenced it in an album title and have as many alternate names for one another as audiences do for this movie (The Master Killer, Shaolin Master Killer and Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang).

Liu Yude (Liu) has been radicalized into the rebellion against the Manchu government, which ends when General Tien Ta destroys his school and then kills not just the students, but their friends and family as well. On the run, he goes to the Shaolin temple in the hopes of learning the fighting skills he’ll need for revenge.

As an outsider, he is turned away until the chief abbott has mercy on him. Yet a year later, Yude is now San Te and begins working his way through the 35 training chambers that each monk must complete. The top chamber is too much for our hero, where he must recite Buddhist philosophy from memory, so he begins on the bottom, amazing everyone at becoming the master of 35 of the chambers in just six years.

After numerous battles, he finally defeats one of the elders and announces that his goal is to create the new 36th chamber, one in which ordinary people will be given the skills to defend themselves. The temple officially banishes him but only does so to allow him to go back into the ordinary world and continue the revolution and stopping Tien Ta.

“The wall may be low, but the Buddha is high.” With dialogue like this, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin shows that the journey to master oneself through fighting skill is not even about the actual fighting. It is mastering emotion and going inward to better oneself. The war is often with ourselves.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin by Celestial Pictures and L’Immagine Ritrovata; a new feature commentary by critic Travis Crawford; new select-scene commentary by film critic and historian Tony Rayns; interviews with Gordon Liu and cinematographer Arthur Wong; Shaolin: Birthplace of a Hero and Elegant Trails, two archive featurettes with Gordon Liu produced by Celestial Pictures in 2003; Tiger Style: The Musical Impact of Martial Arts Cinema, a newly filmed overview of Shaw Brothers’ influence on hip hop and other music genres featuring music historian Lovely Jon; Cinema Hong Kong: Swordfighting, the second instalment in a three-part documentary produced by Celestial Pictures with interviews with Gordon Liu, Lau Kar-leung, Cheng Pei-pei, John Woo, Sammo Hung, Kara Hui, David Chiang and others; alternate opening credits from the American version titled Master Killer; Hong Kong and German theatrical trailers; the US TV spot and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

When you see that Chang Cheh has made a movie, you realize that you are about to see an above and beyond film. Invincible Shaolin is the story of General Pu (Lung-Wei Wang) trying to destroy both the north and south Shaolin schools through trickery. He invites Pao Sen Tsao (Lu Feng), Su Fong (Sun Chien) and Yang Chung Fei (Chiang Sheng) from the north and their equals from the south to battle one another in a demonstration. The north wins, everyone goes away as friends and then the General kills the southern students and gets out the word that there is a civil war between the Shaolin schools.

The southern master Mai (Chan Sen) finds three new students — Ho Ying Wu (Kuo Choi), Chu (Lo Meng) and Mai Fong (Wei Pai) — and with his dying words inspires them to go on to get revenge which just so happens to be on Sun Chien’s wedding day.

The north and south schools finally battle again in one of the most blood and gore-drenched fight scenes that I’ve seen in a Shaw Brothers movie. Chests are torn open, spears pierce bodies and the villains appear to take advantage of the bad blood that they have engineered between the Shaolin.

As always, Chang Cheh’s themes of brotherhood, valor and betrayal are what moves the story and the fighting is quite strong thanks to the talents of the Venom Mob. What an incredible movie.

The Arrow Video Shaw Scope Volume Two box set has a brand new 4K restoration of Invincible Shaolin, as well as an interview with action director Robert Tai; Poison Clan Rocks The World, a brand new visual essay on the Venom Mob written and narrated by author Terrence J. Brady; a Hong Kong theatrical trailer and an image gallery.

You can get this set from MVD.

You can also stream this movie on the Arrow player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Directed by Don Como (World of the Unknown, The Unknown Force), this is three episodes of a canceled TV series that had Jack Palance, Samantha Eggar, Will Geer and Roscoe Lee Brown as the hosts.

It’s your typical mid-70s paranormal BS, except then there’s this credit that says “All of the following scenes were filmed within the guarded confines of the People’s Temple in Los Angeles, The Reverend Jim Jones presiding” and you see footage of people being healed there and you realize that this was made and aired before everyone went to Guyana and well, you know what happened there.

There’s also a guy who was going to kill himself, went to a psychic and learned that if he gets stigmata, he finds oil. You can’t tell me that There Will Be Blood is more entertaining than that.

Psychic surgery. Talking to snakes and goats. Needles going through arms. Martial artists who claim that they can channel their powers into lying on beds of nails which in no way makes you good in a fight. Palance in a turtleneck. As always, Eggar provided her own wardrobe. A couple that built a pyramid over their bed to have better sex. Spitting up ectoplasm. Talking to plants. All the drugs.

People used to say that doing Ripley’s Believe It or Not was the down part of Palance’s career and he was like — imagine his voice — “I’ve done way worse, friend.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Just Jaeckin, this film has magazine editor Elisabeth (Dayle Haddon, Sex With a Smile, Spermula) having a contest to find the greatest lover in the world with each of the selections getting to spend quality time with her. One of those men is liontamer Pierre (Gerald Ismaël), who works for a destitute circus run by Max (Fernando Rey).

This movie may be less thought of than Jeackin’s Emmanuelle yet it’s a worthwhile film. Perhaps less overall sex, sure, but it still has an erotic charge and more of a romantic story. If you had The Playboy Channel in the 80s, there’s a good chance you probably saw this. And hey — Dalila Di Lazzaro (Frankenstein 80, the female monster in Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, The Pyjama Girl Case, the headmistress in Phenomena) plays herself!

The Cult Epics blu ray release of The Last Romantic Lover has a new 4K HD Transfer from the original 35mm negative supervised by cinematographer Robert Fraisse; audio commentary by Jeremy Richey, the author of the book Sylvia Kristel: from Emmanuelle to Chabrol; interviews with Just Jaeckin and Dayle Haddon; a presentation at the Cinematheque Francaise and trailers. You can get it from MVD.

Known as Dragon Zombies Return and Zodiac Fighters, this movie is the kind of movie I just let wash over me.

Polly Shang Kuan Ling-Feng plays East Sea Dragon, a woman who has spent a year in a cave to study her fighting style and now is searching for the other, well, zodiac fighters like Rooster, Rat, Ox, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Dog, Pig, Tiger and Rabbit. Everyone has a costume that ties into their sign and martial arts to match.

Their enemy? Tiger Shark, played by Lo Lieh, who has an army of crab men, a boat that launches rubber sharks and the Five Elements, Fire, Wood, Water, Air and Gold. You thought there were only four elements? You aren’t ready for this.

From http://tarstarkas.net/2012/11/the-zodiac-fighters/

This is the story of a professional mourner who finds a magic cave and unites all of the animal forms of combat to battle rubber sharks. I have no other way to explain it. It’s one of the oddest movies I’ve seen — and just think about that and all that I have watched — and it’s so blobby and grainy and a bad transfer and you know, I kind of want it that way.

Want me to convince you?

Morricone’s theme from Exorcist II is in this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

You can call this War of the Wizards or The Phoenix but either way, this movie is astounding. It was co-directed by Chang Mei-Chun (Dynasty, Revenge of the Shogun Women) and Sadamasa Arikawa (the director of special effects for films such as Destroy All Monsters; Son of Godzilla and The Mighty Peking Man).

This played in the U.S. with a horrible dub but that doesn’t matter. What does is that this movie has fantastic visuals and seems closer to a fantasy children’s movie. I have no idea why it doesn’t get discussed at all because it’s just stunning.

Tai (Hsiu-Shen Liang) is a poor fisherman who reads all he can to become a better person. He finds the Magic Vessel of Plenty and the Bamboo Book of All Knowledge, which allows him to become a rich man, but he shares his wealth by buying his fellow townspeople food. This doesn’t impress the woman he’s in love with, Jasmine (Hoi Si-Man), who wants nothing to do with him even if he is rich and successful now.

One after another killer comes his way to take his life but end up killing one another first. He’s saved by Violet (Terry Hu) and Hyacinth (Chow Chi-Ming), who promise to protect him so he decides to marry them both. That’s stopped by two old wizards who claim that Tai is filled with lust and has no idea that fate is coming for him.

The sisters really work for an evil alien called Flower Fox (Betty Pei Ti) and Tai is going to need to transform into a silver-costumed sword-wielding hero if he hopes to break the sisters away and save his people. Then, he fights a rock monster and Richard Kiel, dressed as if he were in a Sinbad movie, which makes this movie so much better as he battles Tai with giant claws.

There’s also an incredible looking phoenix that yes, is a puppet, but who cares? Perhaps fantasy doesn’t need to look perfect to be perfect. When I read negative reviews of this, it upsets me because the people who feel that way have no joy inside them.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, this isn’t a Cannon. It’s 21st Century, which was later sold to Menahem Golan. But hey — it is a fake Bruce Lee movie too, so let’s get into it.

No less a luminary than Quentin Tarantino reviewed this movie, setting it up by saying that “Both Bruce Li and 21st Century kept kung fu flicks alive in the waning days of the genre before the emergence of Jackie Chan.”

The Han Family and a Japanese gang led by The Hakido Bear (Bolo Yeung) are unleashing counterfeit U.S. dollars on Hong Kong. Hi Chi (Bruce Li) and his partner Lai (Chang Lei) must stop them, which seeing as how this is a kung fu movie means lots of fights. While that’s all going on, one of the Hans named Donna (Dana Lei) has the paper needed to print more money and starts playing the two crime families against one another. She’s incredible in this, beating every one of these men at their game.

How would we confuse this with a Bruce Lee movie? Is it the Game of Death tracksuit that Li wears in the first scene? Maybe it’s Li himself, who was billed as Li Hsiao Lung (Lee Little Dragon). Man, the titles of Li’s movies are practically begging you to pretend that he’s the real Bruce, like Bruce Lee, A Dragon Story; Bruce Lee Against Superman; Bruce Lee, We Miss You and Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger. But it really has nothing else to do with Bruce, instead a buddy cop movie with two of the worst cops this side of a giallo arguing over who is going to get Donna, who is really the villain of the movie, but who can blame them? Between the 70s fashion and her doing everything she can to bend every man to her will, she owns this movie, but we needed the Brucesploitation connection to get us to watch it in the first place.

You can watch this on Tubi.