Bi xue si yin qiang

Although this movie "The silver Spear" (1980) aka "Silver Hermit from Shaolin Temple" and Cast lineup is correct on this page, the DVD cover and Storyline ended up on "The deadly Silver Spear (1977)" page. Someone on that page reviewed this title and gave it a bad rating (like dog poop bad) 1 star. (LOL)...

Being that I was a teenager when these flicks were being shown in the 70's and 80's I find it a great "blast from the past". I can understand the younger generation that are used to newer films bumping into something like this and saying "What is this crap?"...

Yes... its cheesy and all, but I remember seeing this as a teen. I'll split my feelings and give it a 4.3

It starts with the helpful narrator explaining the female leader of the best martial arts sect has sent for four men to compete to marry her daughter. Mang Fei plays Green Lotus, Tien Peng plays Fast Steed, Chung Wah plays Red Leaf, and Tin Hok plays Silver Spear. Green Lotus and Red Leaf start to fight before the judges arrive but they already drank poison wine and fall into the grave that Silver Spear dug for himself because of heart ache for a former lover. There is room for one more in the grave and that is Silver Spear. His dose was not fatal though. Tien Peng being the only one who did not drink the poison wine is of course accused of the crime. He escapes and Silver Spear is revived and gives chase. Tien Peng finds Silver Spear's former lover but again he falls into a trap.

I always start my reviews by detailing the opening scenes to make sure we are talking about the same movie. If you have watched a few of these you know there is much title confusion.

Confusion also describes most of this movie. Many characters enter and seem important then are never seen again. There are abrupt cuts that have the feel this is really a two or three hour movie that was severely edited. Some of the fights are good but the only existing copy is a VHS transfer that makes everything seem too close up. Forget about any fight scene in the dark as they are totally black. Overall it is a struggle to watch. As a hard core fan of the genre I am used to these problems. After watching it once I am sure I will never watch it again.