Qi sha

The first time I watched this movie I was drawn into the plot and style. Who is the mastermind? That is the intriguing mystery. There is also the style of the set with the evil clan headquarters and the silver ball delivering messages from the unknown leader. From start to finish I had no idea what was going on, if it made sense, and I could not tell one actor from another. I liked it though and stuck it out all the way because I wanted to know who was the mastermind. At the end I liked it and considered it one of the best.

Then I watched it again a few years later. The movie did not hold up at all. The plot and style fell to the side and nothing of substance was left. The fights were good but one fight was the same as any other, the action did not advance the story at all. Every fight was the same fight. Even the word "mastermind" in the title became meaningless. These bad guys had to be idiots. They suspected one of their own as a spy, killed him, yet were tricked again, so suspected another of their own and killed him as if they had never been in this situation before.

I'd heard mixed things about this Shaw rarity but I really enjoyed it. It is very similar to THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS in that it plays out as a kind of kung fu mystery with a ton of decent action throughout. There are no big stars here but a host of second-tier bosses including Johnny Wang Lung Wei, Ku Feng and Dick Wei. The story hits you non-stop and the action wows, building to a classic climax. Great stuff!

A fearful and ruthless crime syndicate known as the Qi Sha clan is terrorizing towns across the Chinese empire. For years, the townspeople have been living in escalating fear under their ominous reign. The syndicate is controlled by Seven Chiefs that rule their own separate territory, and is infamous for their atrocities. Not wanting to yield to the clan's rampant terror, the Government assigns the Minister of Crime Investigation Department to destroy them.

Realizing that he is up against a callous syndicate of assassins and as the mysterious leader of the organized gang has yet to be revealed, the Minister devises a plan to wipe out the gang from "within" by infiltrating his spy, whose identity is as enigmatic as the leader of the syndicate, into the Qi Sha clan.

A few days after three of the Qi Sha Chiefs are killed in a confrontation with the Minister's agents and for reason of gaining control over their expanded territories, the mysterious syndicate leader instates three new chiefs from their hordes of loyal followers: as Chief Number Six is Liang Jie - a short-tempered muscular fighter that uses his hulking set of brass bangles on his arms to maim or kill his opponents; as Chief Number Seven is Lu Yi Fei - a killer who wields a massive circular saw blade hidden in his broad farmer's hat; and Chief Number Eight is Fan Tao - a cold-blooded bare-chested killer donning a black cape who keeps his double steel knives in his scabbards tied around his waist.

Following the initiation of the three new Chiefs, predicaments surface that jeopardize a vital mission the Seven Chiefs undertake, leading to their killing one of their own for accusation of treachery. The matter becomes complicated when the situation repeats itself and the remaining Chiefs begin to suspect one another as traitors.

Haunted by internal conflicts among themselves, one by one, the Chiefs are killed in gruesome ways by their own members. With the Qi Sha chiefs dwindling in number, it is only a matter of time before the mastermind must reveal his identity, and the spy must confront the mysterious mastermind in a duel-to-the-death showdown.

To Kill A Mastermind, despite its title, is more of an action-oriented wuxia film with unique characters playing the assassins and stylishly choreographed weapon fights than a complex, plot-driven one.

If you have seen and liked Sun Chung's other action-oriented Shaw Brothers wuxia films, you'll likely enjoy this too! Fans are still hoping for an official release on DVD or Blu-ray!

Invidiously clandestine marauders, the greatly feared Qi Sha Clan have long been terrorising all and sundry with their bloodthirsty chicanery. Deviously dominated by a malign martial arts mastermind, it will take uncommon heroism and prodigious Kung Fu savvy to bring these murderous misfits to book! Chung Sun's far from sluggish, tremendously exciting martial arts epic has all the dastardly machinations, savage gorings, flamboyant outfits, and dazzlingly acrobatic spectacle one expects from the iconic Shaw Brothers studio. To Kill a Mastermind may not be the most thoroughbred title in the esteemed SB stable, but the handsomely restored HD edition is a delight, as there's nary a dull moment in Chung Sun's engagingly plotted, consistently thrilling cavalcade of exemplary Kung Fu bellicosity!

Sorry to rain on the parade of nostalgia-riders who remember this from when they were twelve years old, but this movie is so made by and for 12-year-olds that "plot" is too big a word to describe its so-called story. Some Legion of something has some leaders who are in turn suspected of being traitors and killed off one by one - there NOTHING in the "story" about who they actually are, what they fight for, who their opponents are, etc. It is a friggin' boring mess! Sure, there are some grand fight scenes, but much of the kung fu is below average for this kind of movie; quite often it is obvious that the blows don't connect at all. Slo-mo scenes are sometimes nice, other times meaningless. There is no character depth at all, nothing engaging about the story (unless fragmented fighting spectacle is literally all you want, in which case you are probably 12 years old), and an enormous amount of very silly and meaningless elements (like those banners proclaiming the death penalty for a bunch of redundant things - just ridiculously silly!). This movie cannot and should not receive a rating greater than a 4 out of 10. The current 7 rating is powered by nostalgia and not having seen a lot of better movies of this sort. Before watching this movie, I saw "The Lady Assassin" from 1983, and that movie has so much of what was missing from this one. Intense and dense plotting and quality fighting. Check it out; it is top notch (8 or 9 out of 10).