Director: Chang Cheh
Year: 1980
Country: Hong Kong
Alternative Titles: Tie qi men; The Spearman of Death
Genre: Kung-Fu
Plot:
After getting into a problem in town, a meeting between two rival martial arts clans erupts in violence resulting in the death of each clan’s master. When the more virtuous clan selects a new elder, they decide to select one of their own as a scapegoat and send him away so that no one can suspect him of committing the murder on their rival, they soon start to realize that the rivalry has only been kickstarted when a series of assassins looking to settle the score emerges to kill him off for the incident. Forced to rely on a mysterious killer for safety, he sets out to put an end to the rivalry between the clans once and for all.
Review:
For the most part, this was a rather mediocre if still entertaining genre effort. What this one gets right is based around the highly enjoyable and thrilling martial-arts fighting which are well-choreographed and quite exciting. The more grounded tendency to keep them from flying through the air and rely more on fast-paced hand-to-hand combat that relies on traditional move-sets and defenses, this setup provides a strong baseline for the energetic sequences to appear later on featuring the massive brawl between the studios, the series of street-fights involving the rival assassins sent to even the score and the high-energy finale that features multiple massive gang-fights including multiple performers engaging in thrilling, intricately-choreographed setpieces that involve hand-to-hand or weaponry in the fights. Given the familiar setup of rival schools and brotherhood being dishonored that sets everything in motion being good for this kind of film, it does have some positive factors.
There are some flaws to be had here. The biggest drawback in this one is the rather overlong and bloated running time that doesn’t need to be this lengthy. The main setup here involving the one character being sent away to prevent the fighting from escalating between the two clans and the following revelations about the mysterious weaponry that becomes a focal point in the second half of the film makes the overall pacing far talkier than it should be. The fighting isn’t as frequent as needed here since the film goes through the various elements in the convoluted storyline including all these different motivations, side-plans, and back-stabbing which can be a bit of a drag for those that want a more fast-paced display of their move-sets. Unearthing each of the secrets and betrayals that arise offers a few too many details here prevents the faster-paced fare from emerging despite the storyline present, which is what holds this one back the most.
Overview: ***.5/5
Not as much of a classic entry in the genre as it could’ve been with the heavily-layered plotline that has too much going on to keep track of, the high-quality fighting and enjoyable setup keep this one going quite nicely. Those who appreciate this kind of martial arts effort or the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others who aren’t into the negatives should heed caution in favor of other genre efforts first
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