Hung (Gordon Liu) manages to kill Pai Mei (Lo Lieh) and is happy he can finally rest and not worry about the bad guys anymore. Hung longs to have a simple home with a women he loves. The leader of the bad guys have no intention of letting him stay alive. For revenge the clan attacks the village where Hung lives and kills everyone except Hung and his sister-in-law.

I don't know who wrote the script, but the dialogue isn't very useful to the movie itself. There are still a lot of questions left unanswered. Even after watching it several times there are several elements that cause confusion including Lo Lieh being more than one villain. Hung realizes he doesn't have the skills he needs in order to defeat his foe and his sister-in-law (Kara Hui) teaches him *soft* embroidery style that provides another skill.

Hsiao Ho is listed in the cast but I certainly didn't see him but I did notice some of the stunt men acrobatic stunts tended to be the same making me wonder if he was playing different people for action scenes.

One thing you can be sure of is better than expected fight scenes. The one-on-one are all with Liu and Lieh. The fact they are both excellent fighters and the fighting directors experience is extensive is the saving grace of the film. Unfortunately there are lengthy attempts at humor and they don't work - just way too much time talking and not enough fighting. And a few abilities that go beyond typical physical fighting skills. For example Pak Mei has the unique ability to defy gravity and simply float away from an attack by anyone. He also has a secret place in his body where his life force is contained so that if his adversary grows near the target he flies away and moves it to a different part of his body.

There are some very good action fight scenes, in fact they are the saving grace of the whole film. It is credit to Lieh, Liu and the experienced stunt fight stuntmen who make the movie worth watching. I have been told by many people into martial arts movies that this is a real classic, and a must see. I cannot go that far. It was filmed at a time when the money makers were trying to figure out why the interest in martial arts was beginning to wane.

(According to HKFlix this film is allegedly part of a trilogy, which includes (in order) "Men From The Monastery", "Executioners From Shaolin", and "Fist Of The White Lotus".)

This was not an easy film to review. I am always concerned about providing accurate information even in a small detail. But what seems to be correct, after a little investigation has sometimes turned out to be wrong. I have provided as much as I am comfortable with but I'm certain those with more experience can supply a much better review. One last thing. This does have enough decent fights to be entertaining even if are not aware of the Pak Mei background story.

Gordon Liu's character not only energetically believes in developing his external fighting techniques, but knows in the innermost part of his soul/being that he must also desire to learn how to develop and integrate internal "soft" fighting techniques in order to increase his ability and standard of kung fu. He was made aware of his shortcomings using only his external tiger/crane against the adversarial "White Brow Monk" character played by Lo Lieh. The attitude of Liu's desire was expressed when he humbles himself and receives "soft fist" training techniques from his sister who gives an expert illustration of a technique that starts off a lot like Yang Tai Chi Quan but integrates other soft fist forms into a deadly method of closing the gap and finding the opponent's weak spots.

Many martial arts films attempt to showcase "soft fist" fighting techniques and style, but this film, after all avenues of weapons, techniques and styles have been exhausted, simply weaves revenge into good old fashioned retaliatory justice.

This beautiful opening melee is the first showcase of the skill of the White Lotus chief. He casually walks through sword attacks as if it were a Sunday afternoon in the park. If that doesn't cement his badassedness in viewers' minds, then the fact that no matter how good the kung fu, he cannot be touched should. I was personally disappointed that Siu-ching, the sister played by Yeung Jing-jing, had so little screen time. She went out valiantly covering Mei-ha's (her pregnant sister Kara Hui) escape.

The rest of the movie is basic revenge flick fodder, but two things stand out to me. The first being that without Kara Hui, this movie goes nowhere. Okay, her woman's sewing style kung fu seems improbable but adds much needed finesse to Wen-tin's tiger/crane style. Mei-ha (Hui) is pregnant when the movie opens and doesn't get to display her skills until maybe midway through the feature, but it's a subtle, but effective show of her skills.

The other thing that stood out to me seemed to be that the White Lotus chief wanted someone to give him a challenge. That's the only explanation I can think of for him letting Wen-tin live time after time to return and take his revenge.

There is very good action throughout "Fist Of The White Lotus". Every fight has something special, my favorites being Wen-tin's first fight with the twin Tai Chi swordsmen and his subsequent fight with White Lotus that leaves him battered, bruised, and rolling down the temple stairs.

Thankfully, there is very little in the way of humor. What little we see is courtesy of Mei-ha's brother with a whiny disposition and bad hairstyle. But, I did find the attack in the bath pretty humorous.

All in all, "Fist Of The White Lotus" is an entertaining movie. Although some claim it pales in comparison to the superior "Executioners From Shaolin" that it may or may not be a sequel to. See for yourself.

The reasons are simple:

• It's dead fun to watch and the action is kick-ass and so is the plot.
• Gordon Liu basically is trying to get back at Pai Mei, played by the director lo lieh . Pai Mei is basically industrucitble--nothing can even get close to him. This just leads Gordon to find ways of getting him. Even better, Johnny Wang Lung Wei (common villain in a lot of SB films) plays co-villain next to Lo Lieh, and has some brilliant fight scenes with Gordon. Who steals the show? It's indeed Pai Mei--probably one of the greaest villains in martial arts history.
• Even though it's a revenge film (typical kung fu), the revenge part of the film seems to be thrown out in the middle of the film, and the plot turns more into Gordon trying to beat Lo Lieh (almost forgetting that Pai Mei had killed Gordon's brother, who both together killed Pai Mei's classmate).

Is it that good ?

Basicaly, I went off martial arts films for awhile after seeing a majority of the great ones. However I idiotically decided to leave this one for another time. But I watched this and it was like watching martial arts without wirework or large special effects and CGI for the first time.