This movie quite surprised me. Not only because it's such a great one but because I liked it even better than its predecessor "Da zui xia" as well."Da zui xia" was already a surprising good movie, that besides was a genre defining one. It was one of the first 'modern' Kung Fu movies, with plenty of sword fights and action in it. But this is perhaps why I liked this sequel better; it's even more action filled! Not only does the movie feature some amazing and spectacular fight choreography in it but it's made even more spectacular and amazing thanks to the way it got shot. It has some absolutely wonderful cinematography in it, especially during all of its fight scenes. I also quite liked the hand-held camera-work during some of the sword-fights. I'm not too sure about but I believe that this is something I have never seen before in a genre movie like this.Because the movie is so action packed, it becomes a truly entertaining one to watch, with a pleasant fast pace to it as well. The story still finds some room to throw in a love-story as well but it does this in a quite original way. It's a sort of love triangle love-story that plays out nicely for its story.The character played by Pei-pei Cheng gets pushed somewhat more to the background this time but it's OK, since the movie brings in a lot of more awesome characters to replace her with. What I like about the character's is that you're constantly changing your opinions about them. Some of them start out as villains, who eventually turn out to be good guys after all.It's not featuring a that complicated or well written story but it's serving its purpose well for the movie. It takes the movie to lots of beautiful looking places, where we meet all kinds of awesome characters, who often get into a fight with each other. Seriously, I can't see how someone could not like this movie, even when you aren't very familiar with the genre yet. It's simple entertainment but oh so well made and brought to the screen! 9/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Touted as the sequel to King Hu's Come Drink With Me starring Cheng Pei Pei, this movie is anything but. Except for the return of Pei Pei's Golden Swallow role, Chang Cheh's movie doesn't share any similarities with King Hu's original, clearly stamping his own take on his movie utilizing the lead character from Come Drink With Me, and relegating her to supporting role status.As a fan of the original, this is downright disappointing, as I had expected to see Pei Pei kick some serious rear again as the fabled swordswoman. Instead, what we get is a story involving a love triangle of sorts, with costars Lo Lieh as Golden Whip Han Tao, a man who saved Golden Swallow from bandits and nursed her back to health, and Wang Yu as a beau from long time ago, who now calls himself The Silver Roc. The Drunken Cat, with whom Golden Swallow rode into the sunset with, is clearly forgotten and totally written out.In actuality, this movie can be renamed The Silver Roc. The story centers on this figure, an orphan bearing a scar on the forehead similar to Harry Potter's, and is one of the fellow disciples to Golden Swallow's teachers. Disappearing one night to seek revenge on his family's murderers, he resurfaces to look for Golden Swallow, and does so by killing villains in her name, in an attempt to lure her out of seclusion. Being the self-proclaimed number one swordsman with an attitude helps too, and not before long, our trio will meet, with Golden Swallow being indecisive about both alpha males, that they have to duke it out to settle scores.In Chang Cheh's signature ketchup blood style, this movie doesn't lack in the gore department, with really bloody scenarios, dismembered bodies, slashes to face and an inspiration to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, albeit done in a more straightforward manner. But some of the kung fu moves seemed recycled from One Armed Swordsman, especially Wang Yu's Silver Roc, who holds his sword akimbo similar to his One Armed days. And his much revered "Coup De Grace" killer move was never seen until the finale, and that too was too weakly executed and laughable. I wondered too about numerous scenes where characters liked to leap out of windows, clearly to a mat at the bottom, out of the screen. But one thing's a bonus, and that's having plenty of outdoor shots versus indoor studio ones, which boosts production values a little.Still, it's a decent martial arts flick, but one which could have been miles better. With Wang Yu hogging too much of the limelight with his character in this movie, it suffers by neglecting the other leading characters by Lo Lieh, and especially Cheng Pei Pei, because the movie, after all, is named after her Golden Swallow, or in the original English title, it's the Girl with the Thunderbolt Kick (apparently it's a misnomer, she doesn't have that skill, nor executed any recognizable kicking moves).If anything, watch out for a young Wu Ma as Hu Zhen, a supporting character and friend of Golden Swallow and Han Tao. Nothing memorable, but just a getting a kick out of recognizing a star (to me at least) in his earlier youthful looking days.

I first saw this movie when I was 16 years old back in the 1970's during the kung fu craze. Our local cinema in Swindon showed a Kung Fu movie every Sunday and me and my mates used to go down and sneak in the back door and watch the latest flick.I remember this movies as "Girl with the thunderbolt kick", but that's a terrible title as she doesn't have much of a kick, and most of the film centers around the male lead rather than "Golden Swallow".Nevertheless the film is truly magnificent, with wonderful panoramic shots, excellent fight sequences and a story that is easy to follow.After searching high and low for the film years ago, I gave up, but luckily for me Celestrial Pictures purchased the whole of the Shaw Brothers Back catalogue and has now started to release these great Kung Fu movies that were thought gone for ever. A search on Ebay discovered "Golden Swallow" was available, and a week later I am watching a fully restored, digitally enhanced DVD with a crystal clear 1:235 widescreen classic.The quality looks like it was filmed in the last couple of years, not the mid 1960's.Grab yourself a copy, get a beer out of the fridge, sit back and have 100 great minutes of entertainment.

THE GIRL WITH THE THUNDERBOLT KICK (aka GOLDEN SWALLOW, 1968) is a Shaw Bros. costume swordplay drama notable for co-starring the studio's top male action star, Jimmy Wang Yu, with the studio's then-reigning swashbuckling diva Cheng Pei Pei (THE THUNDERING SWORD). Wang Yu plays the notorious killer Silver Roc and Cheng plays his childhood sweetheart Golden Swallow, whom he hasn't seen in years (a reprise of a character the same actress played in King Hu's COME DRINK WITH ME, 1966). Golden Swallow follows Roc's trail of blood and is accompanied by Golden Whip Hand (Lo Lieh), who is in love with her but helps her track down Silver Roc. Midway through the film they all meet, but Silver Roc quickly challenges Whip Hand to a duel after the latter condemns Roc for an earlier instance of cold-blooded killing. That's pretty much the whole plot and it takes a long time getting to the final duel. This film has its fans but it doesn't hold up as well as such other Wang Yu vehicles of the 1960s as ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, RETURN OF THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN, and THE ASSASSIN. There are plenty of swordfights here, but they're fairly stylized, with lots of leaping around, twirling of swords, soft blows, and unconvincing fighting skills. Cheng Pei Pei has great screen presence, but she's more of a dancer than a fighter. There's an undertone of unrequited love that's rather poignant at times. Following this film Wang Yu turned to a harder-edged brand of martial arts film with THE CHINESE BOXER (1970), generally considered the first pure kung fu film.The video transfer available in this country has Cantonese dialogue dubbed over the original Mandarin soundtrack, which remains slightly audible. The transfer is full-screen, cutting off the widescreen subtitles on the sides, making some of the dialogue difficult to decipher. The Cantonese sound mix includes music cues lifted from John Barry's soundtrack for the James Bond film YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and awkwardly plastered in over the very lovely original music track.