Cheng Pei-Pei reprises her Golden Swallow character from King Hu's Wuxia classic Come Drink With Me, now being part of the male world of heroism that Chang Cheh came to fame portraying. That is why Cheng does feel slightly pushed aside in favour of the Jimmy Wang Yu and Lo Lieh's characters but rumour has it that Chang was prepared to push Cheng Pei-Pei even more to the wayside initially. Cheng fought successfully to be more part of Golden Swallow and the film does achieve a finely tuned balance that doesn't sacrifice any trademarks of Chang Cheh's.

Initially a slow, even cliché, love triangle is painted in extensive amounts of blood by Chang (who also co-wrote) but he manages to turn Golden Swallow into a remarkably felt drama where the choice of quiet emoting from character rises the film to affecting levels. The trio of actors all respond to this and even Jimmy Wang Yu's anti-hero gets a plight the audience can understand, all culminating in a vivid gory climax.

Chang Cheh's usual action directors of choice, Lau Kar Leung and Tong Gaai, offers up fight scenes that certainly are products of their time, meaning crude executions of various elements. However some skirmishes involving Wang Yu achieve an admirable fluidity and the classic action duo's work connects very well to the storytelling, making anyone accustomed to the latter day fight choreography quickly forget about any slow aspects. Chiu Sam Yin and Wu Ma co-stars while Ku Feng, David Chiang, Yuen Cheung Yan and Lau Kar Leung briefly appear.