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This early Shaw wuxia sword adventure has some great concepts - a female student and teacher pair, the last legendary sword of the Martial Arts World, a "vampiric" naughty prince (actually just looks vampiric), some nice group skirmishes. Li Ching as the student starts out being a bit bratty and annoying but her character develops a bit throughout the film. Essentially a legendary sword is lost and the movie is about it's rightful descendents trying to regain ownership of it from the local ruler (whose son also has the hots for the female student of the teacher whose husband was killed for the sword).

Overall I didn't get bored at all during the movie even tho I felt the narrative was only just OK. There was a ton of Morricone music lifted from the Clint Eastwood "Man with no name" films - as sneaky as it was, it really added a lot to the film. Every time the sword is unsheathed you get a Morricone sting. Despite myself I had to grin... The swordplay and fighting was just a bit below average. Not even Jimmy Wang Yu level. But not too distracting from the rest of the movie at least. There are a couple of nice "magical" kung fu gags as well as a very small training sequence. The last third brought in a cartload of new characters who seemed a bit late to the party. It felt like this was the first of a trilogy adapted from a novel, especially with the somewhat open-ended ending, so that kind of hurt it for me. Maybe if I saw the sequel (if one was ever intended or made) than I would change my opinion...anyways I really would have preferred it if they had concentrated on the female teacher-female student premise - that was kind of fresh, even tho it got shoved aside later on. I give it a 7 just for that concept alone.

What a wonderful surprise to watch this movie. I came across it by accident and as a fan of the genre I gave it a chance though I knew nothing of it in advance.

I enjoyed it thoroughly and it ended with many questions. Why is this movie not a martial arts movie classic? Why was a sequel never made in 1968? Why was this movie never remade? It is that good.

Let me qualify that. First you have to be a fan of this genre. Second you have to look at the date it was filmed. Putting that into perspective I rate it 8 out of 10. Reasons for that high rating include: real martial arts. Though not true martial artists the fight choreographer actually taught the actors how to do real kung fu moves. Also the fan is used as a weapon. The fan was later picked up and used as a weapon and comedy prop by Gordon Liu and Jackie Chan and others. Is this not the first use? Finally we have the girls kick ass aspect of the movie. Pei Pei Ching gets a lot of credit for leading that type of action but that's another story. I'll just say this movie is an excellent early example of that style.

To conclude I consider this movie mandatory for all fans of the genre.