Shen dao

This wang yu classic has some of the best kung fu/swordplay ever, highly recommended for the action bits and fights. its also really well directed and photographed, looks great. and of course any movie that stars wang yu and tien feng is going to feature great performances and this one surely does. not sure what the other reviewers on here are going on about because this is easily one of the best shaw brother productions ever.

There's an odd propensity to cripple/majorly injure Jimmy Wang Yu in many of his films, and this is no exception.

On the surface this is begins as a fairly standard swordplay/wu xia -esque film. A powerful weapon owned by a master of a martial arts school, a ambitious student who wants that ultimate weapon for himself, and a student without ambition but a good, moral man who just happens to be the best in the school. From there the story proceeds.

While the action isn't the best, considering the time, and the story isn't quite as endearing as The One Armed Swordsman or the One Armed Boxer (both also with Jimmy Wang Yu), this is still a very interesting story, and the journey and tragedy of Ling Tseng-hsiao makes for exceptional viewing.

Start of the movie is okay but it becomes apparent it is not just a great sword from the movies title but a super sword. So if this is not your style then go for next movie.

Then we come to the classical evil first student want possession of the super sword. Lets face it we do usually not watch martial arts movies for the acting. In this movie they try to make a story heavy revenge movie that do require acting and it fails miserably. The movie it just seem to drag on and on with very little martial arts and us waiting for the final confrontation.

With half an hour left there comes a new plot twist that some may find amazing. I just thought oh my god have they been taking too many drugs? At this time I already felt like the movie had been on for more than 2 hours and did not really care about the end anymore. The end did in my opinion not do anything to improve my view of the movie though.

I have enjoyed most of the earlier Shaw Brothers martial arts movies. This one I would recommend skipping and take something else instead.