Chen, who for my money is one of the most underrated Shaw stars by today's fans, stars as Big Brother Cheng. A refugee from the mainland, Cheng has struggled his whole life and finally owns a successful teahouse that employees other downtrodden folks and generally serves as an all-around good influence on the community. When local youth gangs start robbing and beating up the elderly patrons, Cheng starts to get a tad pissed.

Making matters worse is the fact that the judges always go easy on young offenders, citing societal ills as an excuse for criminal and violent behavior. Enthused by their sense of invulnerability to the law, the young thugs get even bolder -- until Cheng and his employees serve up a dim sum sized dish of ass whuppin'. When Cheng goes to retreive some captured cronies fromt he local gang boss, he is mistaken for a high ranking triad boss. Using this to his advantage, Cheng is able to bring peace to the neighborhood -- for a while. His ruse plunged him and his patrons into an increasingly complex web of violence.

By today's standards, The social drama of The Teahouse is heavy handed. It's hard to miss the movie's message about the need for law and order. The clumsiness of it's well-menaing social commentary can be ignored, however, based purely on the strength of the performances. Chen Kuan-tai is engaging as the honorable Cheng, and the supporting cast all shine. For the most part, they are able to overcome the somewhat simple-minded approach of the script.

The ending, however, is a real let-down sinc eit come sout of nowhere. It almost feels like you're missing a couple scenes, but that's just the no-nonsense way it wraps things up.

Teahouse is not an essential from the new batch of Shaw Bros re-issues, but it's also not anything to avoid. It's violent and brutal, dramatic and well-acted. While you might not be missing a whole lot if you don't pick it up, you'll also not be too disappointed if you do so long as you are not expecting a kungfu film.