Own the rights?
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
SEVEN SOLDIERS OF KUNG FU is a direct sequel to SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON (1973), an epic about the 108 Warriors of Chinese legend (and the book, `Water Margin'), an outlaw band who fought on the side of the people against corrupt officials. Here the 108 are pardoned by the Emperor and assigned to go after a rebel army encamped at a fortress in Hangchow. Seven volunteers enter the fortress as spies to try and find a way for the Emperor's army to gain entrance. When one of their number, the blustery ill-tempered Black Whirlwind (Fan Mei-Sheng), starts a fight and alerts the guards to their presence, the fortress is sealed up and escape is blocked. Only one man (star David Chiang) manages to flee and get the plans back to the army. Another member of the team hides near the underwater gate to let the army ships through the only available entrance once the attack begins.The plot sounds better than it actually plays out. There's a lot of clutter that distracts from the story. Until the final battle nothing quite moves the way it ought to. The camerawork relies too much on zooming and panning. Still, the film is shot on all those magnificent Shaw Bros. sets, including the famous bridge overlooking Kowloon's Clearwater Bay. There are a lot of clever scenes, an exciting final battle, and a fairly interesting cast led by early 1970s Shaw Bros. stalwarts David Chiang, Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai and including the comical heavyweight Fan Mei-Sheng as Black Whirlwind. Yang Sze (aka Bolo Yeung, from ENTER THE DRAGON) plays one of the rebels who fights David Chiang in one key scene. Japanese actor Tetsuro Tamba returns briefly from the first film. It's not as good as SEVEN BLOWS... but it's worth seeing by fans of early 70s swordplay kung fu. The tape viewed toned down the bloodshed in the fight scenes by turning the film to a sepia tint during those scenes.
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