Jian hua yan yu jiang nan

This movie essentially begins with a beautiful handmaiden by the name of Qian-Qian (Ling Lung Yu) eagerly telling her rich nobleman lover "Lei Shao-Fung" (Jackie Chan) that she is pregnant with his child. But rather than being delighted with this news he rudely brushes her off and sends her on her way. Crushed over this unexpected rejection of her Qian-Qian leaves the household she had been working at and runs away. Meanwhile, Lei Shao-Fung has returned to his home and informs his father that an elite group of assassins has targeted the entire family and that they are all in serious trouble. No sooner does he tell them this then they suddenly appear out of nowhere and kill off everyone in the family except Lei Shao-Fung who they thought was dead. When he recovers he sees one of the female assassins named "Ding Can-Ren" (Feng Hsu) standing near him and catching her off-guard holds a sword to her throat. However, rather than killing her he decides to spare her life in exchange for information on why his family was targeted. Upon telling him she then escapes only to follow his every footstep from that point on. The story then shifts to Qing-Qing who meets a stranger by the name of "Jin-Chuan" (Le Lung Shen) who saves her from a small group of bandits and subsequently offers her his protection until she decides what she wants to do next. What she doesn't know is that Jin-Chuan was sent by Lei Shao-Fung to look after her and that she was only sent away because he was afraid that she might suffer the same fate as the rest of his family. Unfortunately, Jin-Chuan is not who he says he is and has his own plans for Qing-Qing. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an intricate film which suffered from too many diverse subplots that didn't flow smoothly from one to the next. Throw in a lot of swordplay and acrobatics and the end result was a rather strange film which was difficult to follow at times. At least, it was for me.

A remarkably young, ponytailed Jackie Chan in an unpolished kung-fu actioner that plays more like a soap opera with occasional action. It is overdone, bizarre, sometimes laughably bad (and I'm not even referring to the picture quality here), but it may be worth seeing for the most fanatic Chan fans, who will get a few glimpses of his skill, although most of the fight scenes rely too heavily on extensive wire work. As others have said, Jackie receives such heavy doses of beating in this film it's almost unsettling. (**)

For a 70's Hong Kong costume martial arts flick, this isn't too bad. I've always been attracted to martial arts movies with a strong female character and the veiled lady in this movie is such a woman. There's lots of fly-on-wires kung-fu action, and Jackie (or Jacky as he's billed in the credits) spends most of the movie getting kicked around by the baddies, including, initially, the veiled woman. She, of course, falls for him - even though she killed his entire family and he has a pregnant girlfriend.

An amazingly horrible film, kung fu corniness at it's best. Everything from the names of the characters: "Chin Chin" which is Japanese for "penis", which is awesome because there are tons of variations in the movie. "All you care about is your chin-chin!" (Actual piece of dialog) The set designs are beautiful and the cinematography catches some great shots sporadically in the film. The fight scenes themselves are just thick with super human hijinks and cheap camera tricks. Altogether, a hilarious piece of kung fu dung.

Not for the serious kung-fu fan, more for the casual-bad-movie-fanatic.

Yeehaw, The Lazy Southerner

A young master named Cao Lei (Jackie Chan) drives away his pregnant girlfriend from the family castle because he knows it's about to be raided by a gang of deadly bandits determined to kill his family. He charges a new friend with her care and protection. Following the attack on his family by the gang lead by a mysterious veiled woman who possesses tremendous, perhaps even mystical, fighting skills, Cao Lei somehow finds himself spared as the veiled woman seems to take a peculiar interest in him following him around like a shadow. Meanwhile the man Cao Lei had entrusted to care for his girlfriend is not quite the honorable fellow Cao Lei had thought. We soon discover his plans do not mirror those of Cao Lei.

This 1970s Martial Arts film is a lot of fun to watch unfold. Filled with unexpected surprises and unusual plot twists, it really keeps the viewer guessing when he or she's not shaking their head in confusion. The most confusion stems from the relationship with the veiled woman who all reason suggests should be Cao Lei's sworn enemy yet...

Still I love the action sequences and although the wire stuff just never looks believable, there's the suggestion of something mystical at work in our story that helps make some of these scenes somehow a little more credible that they would be without it. Jackie Chan may be the star of this movie Feng Hsu steals the show.