Review: Now here is a little gem from Taiwan. The beautiful Pearl Cheung stars in Fury of the Silver Fox, a colorful, engaging, and surprisingly coherent film. Its full of quality wire-fu and cheap camera tricks so kung fu purists may want to move along. But for anyone who might enjoy an action-packed fantasy adventure, this one delivers the goods.

Cheung plays a gal who is shackled from youth with heavy shoes to develop her 'light step' kung fu. We must assume she has additional training, since anyone shackled with heavy weights for years in real life would probably only benefit from acute arthritis and worn out joints. When removed, she is able to bound up into trees and skim across water with ease. There is a lot of wirework that must have employed some rather substantial lengths of rope for we see Cheung bounding over heads at a reasonable distance in the great outdoors. For a 1982 film made in Taiwan, it's very well done.

A villain with red-streaked hair kills Cheung's family and she escapes with the aid of her uncle. She cuts her hair and assumes the identity of a beggar, but the villains catch up with her and she's tossed off a cliff and left for dead. Fortuitously, she safely lands in a cave where a hermit resides. Thus begins a favorite staple of classic martial arts stories, the exiled or trapped master of kung fu who teaches a young pupil in some remote cave or lair. Wong Jing revisited this theme in Kung Fu Cult Master starring Jet Li.

The cave Cheung falls into looks like leftovers from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Giant multi-colored flowers and reeds are everywhere and colored smoke streams out from the ground. It suits the film's look since pretty much all of the costumes, hairdos, and sets are ornate and showy enough to make Liberace smile from his gold-encrusted piano bench in the sky. All of this flamboyance harkens back to the best of Shaw Brothers' golden age of swordplay in the early '70's. Its cheesy, but consistently fun and therefore acceptable, except for Mang Fei's wig. Never has a kung fu star looked fruitier than Mang Fei in this film!

Up to this point, Pearl Cheung has mostly played the female victim, but she emerges from the cave with a large sword in hand offering the big payoff by slicing her way through thugs left and right. Admittedly she's a bit odd for she carries her dead master's body around in a large jar. But we can give her a little leeway because she sets the second half of this film on fire.

The final fight is spectacular. Fruity Guy, I mean Mang, has been captured by his uncle who is making a bid to be Emperor. What Pearl sees in Mang I don't know, but she crashes the party and literally cuts her way through several dozen swordsman as she approaches. Upon clearing the room - and while we're on the topic, that room is something else. A giant mask with flashing eyes sits on the back wall as small pillars with more flashing lights line the hall. Getting back to the action - Pearl and Mang go after the uncle who uses a vicious glove that can fly off his hand to decapitate heads or impale bodies. He ends up getting a bloody eyeful of hurt courtesy of Pearl.

Fury of the Silver Fox plays like the filmmakers where a bit high on drugs, but its to the viewers' benefit. Taiwanese kung fu films are notoriously cheap and reply on too many gimmicky special effects for 'magic use.' But this one makes good use of these tricks, with the exception of some camera editing. And with Pearl, a kung fu fighting babe featured prominently, what more could anyone ask for? Ok, I know the answer to that but this is a family site.