| Plot: | Two men break out of prison, one in possession of half of a treasure map and in search of the other half. Along the way, they encounter an evil master from a rival clan, who wants their treasure map at any cost.
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| Overview: | After being sentenced to four years in jail for murdering someone (whom he claims was a "bad guy"), Ching Siu-Tung wastes no time getting into yet more trouble, as he picks a fight with the jail's resident kung fu master, a seemingly feeble old man who has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. A master of the monkey style, he teaches Ching Siu-Tung a thing or two, and the two eventually become friendly. On the day of the old man's execution, he gives Ching the only valuable possession he has left: one half of a wooden treasure map of some sort. He tells Ching to go and seek the other half of the map as soon as he gets out of jail.
Seeing as how patience is not his strong suit, Ching breaks out of jail the very next day while outdoors on work detail. However, he's not alone: his ankle is chained to that of Hau Chiu Sing, who thankfully agrees to escape with him after the escape is already underway!
Once the two have escaped, they embark on an adventure that brings them into a series of confrontations with various folks who are--for one reason or another--looking for a fight. It seems that everyone they come across has some kind of an axe to grind with one or both of them--which is terrific for us the viewers, since it affords us fight scene after fight scene with a great variety of opponents in a great variety of settings. In addition, it seems that the two escapees are also being followed by a powerful foe and his gang of goons, who will stop at nothing to get the treasure map for themselves.
Without giving away too much of the story, it turns out late in the game that Hau Chiu Sing is not merely along for the ride for his own amusement, and the plot thickens somewhat before continuing on to a thrilling, climactic "gibbon fist" battle.
But regardless, the story is really secondary to the action, which is nothing less than superb. In fact, our only critique is a minor one: a couple of the female fights are a bit slow and could have benefitted from some undercranking; whereas the final fight really did not need the undercranking it had. Nonetheless, it's a mystery to us why this film is so relatively obscure--perhaps because it doesn't feature any of the Shaw Studios mega-star actors or directors who usually draw the most attention? Well, don't let the fact that this film wasn't directed by Lau Kar-Leung--or the fact that Gordon Liu isn't in it--scare you off. This film is definitely up to par with the best of 'em. There's a little something here for everyone--and a lot of the most important things here for even the most serious kung fu fan.
Copyright © 2000+ HKFlix, all rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from HKFlix.
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