Qian dao wan li zhu (1977)

User Rating:

4.1/10   

Director:

Mei Chun Chang

Release Date:

September 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot Keywords:

3 Dimensional | Exploitation

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Ying Bai	...	Eunuch Chow (as Pai Ying)
Kang Chin	...	General Lu Kuai
Chiang Han
Wen Tai Li
Chang Ma
Ching Suen Mao
Bobby Ming
David Tang Wei
Tao-liang Tan	...	Sao Chin Tan

Also Known As:

Dynasty (International: English title)
Ming Dynasty (Taiwan)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Taiwan | Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Quadrophonic

Certification:

UK:X | USA:R | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Company:

Tung Chuan Films

Trivia:

'Super Dragon' aka 'Dynasty' was the first Hong Kong/Taiwan production to be both a 3-D feature integrated with 1970's Hollywood's patented 'Sensurround' 8 track stereophonic sound system.

Amazing 3-D kung fu spectacular

Me and my friends went to see an amazing 3-D kung fu spectacular. And we got what we asked for.

The plot was set in history somewhere near the end of Ming Dynasty, some evil guy attacked some good monks, some young monk fought back, and then there was lots of fighting. We really didn't understand much - it felt like we were watching a censored version where the plot was cut out. Anyway, the plot isn't important. Neither is the acting, which was quite wooden (what would you expect from people selected by their martial arts skills?) and the english dubbing which made it even worse.

But what was important: there was kung fu. The director knew that one and half hours of plain fighting is a bit boring, so there were some quite spectacular stunts, huge army of those one hit point guys, truly ridiculous special weapons (not to spoil anything, I just wonder what material that umbrella was...), the meanest big bad (and good, it seems) guys that require surreal violence to get killed, and all too much 3-D effects, which were more or less amazing.

It seems like there are two special things you can do with 3-D. Thrusting things at the audience or placing irritating things between the audience and the action to make them feel the depth. The first one was used all too often - arrows, swords, a bell-ringing log, you name it. The other one, too. Interestingly, during the movie the bad guy says: "Cheap tricks result in immediate failure".

Overall the movie was not all bad. There were some spectacular fight scenes and the rest wasn't bad enough to make us walk away before the end.