Genre: Drama

Moving from the Shaw Brothers studio to the ones housed at Golden Harvest, Lo Wei and Jimmy Wang Yu bring their considerable talents to this shot in Thailand potboiler that allows Yu to showcase his action talent.

While it hasn’t aged well in comparison to ‘Come Drink With Me’ and even some of Chang Cheh’s early work, it still proves to be a mildly diverting Shaw Brothers’ swordplay film.

It hits all the disaster movies tropes and delivers some spectacular sequences of destruction, mayhem and general disaster insanity.

A four-star movie that, due to its heavy-handed closing shots, loses half a star; the same idea was used with much more sophistication at the end of ‘Anonymous Heroes’.

Strong performances, intelligently filmed action and an all round aura of quality mean that this comfortably hits a four star rating.

Nominated for an Academy Award and sweeping the board at the Japanese equivalent of ‘The Oscars’, Yoji Yamada’s lyrically, tenderly woven tale of dignity is a triumph of substance over action.

‘The Twin Swords’ isn’t the type of Shaw Brothers production that will appeal to everyone, mainly due to its fairly dated style that lacks the superior fight choreography.

It’s certainly a noble effort and a refreshingly grown up horror movie but unfortunately, ‘The Uninvited’ is just a little too serious in its intentions to be a thoroughly satisfying spooky tale.

‘The Unity of Heroes’ is a slipshod update of the Wong Fei-Hung myth, a film wholly lacking in not only chemistry but also everything else that made the Tsui Hark chapters so influential.

If you enjoy some bloody mayhem then it’ll definitely suffice, but it’s highly likely that the majority of viewers will find that there just isn’t enough meat in this bun to truly satisfy.

‘The Valiant Ones’ really does deliver on its promise of a group of gifted fighters going after a never-ending swarm of rampaging pirates and fighting them all to the death.

‘The Victim’ is a fine mixture of action comedy and even drama – three elements that director Sammo Hung juggles with masterful dexterity.