Leofwine_draca Review of Fists of Vengeance

Fists of Vengeance (1972)

Typically brutal early 1970s Shaw venture

[6/10 · 18 December 2017]

THE DEADLY KNIVES offers a mix of themes familiar to those acquainted with Shaw Brothers cinema. There are martial arts schools and photographs of old masters, alongside mass-scale brawling, familiar from their earlier epics like THE CHINESE BOXER and KING BOXER. The tale is a predictable one about the brutality of Japanese invaders and their oppression of Chinese peasants. The twist here is that the action has a more brutal, nihilistic, and sadistic edge, with a strong sexual undercurrent running throughout the proceedings and much more sex and nudity than you normally see in a non-erotic Shaw flick. Ching Li fights for her rights while Lily Li is driven to the edge by her mistreatment; a sweaty Chen Shen has never been more frightening as one of the Japanese leaders. The bloody action builds to a suitably brutal - and satisfying - climax, and overall it's a film that does the job admirably.