Korea, 1934. Three top martial arts school students -- shrewd Kao Yu Ying (Angela Mao, everyone's favorite petite firebrand), sensible Kao Chang (charming Carter Wong), and impetuous Fan Wei (liable Sammo Hung) -- move to China to start their own school. They face opposition from a rival Japanese school. Director Feng Huang, working from a compact script by Yan Ho, relates the enjoyable story at a swift pace, maintains a generally serious tone with a few amusing moments of humor, and stages the abundant kung-fu fights with stirring aplomb. Moreover, the plot neatly explores the themes of patience, courtesy, and standing up for the weak and oppressed. The three protagonists are very engaging, with Mao in particular once again in strong and assertive form as she takes on and defeats a school full of guys (she even beats one dude up with her pigtails!). The Japanese villains are quite arrogant and obnoxious. Yu-tang Li's crisp and lively widescreen cinematography rates as another definite asset. A cool little item.

Korea, 1934. During the Japanese occupation, there is open warfare between rival martial arts schools. There is a fight in the marketplace, and three Chinese students cannot stand the unfair way of students that side up with the invaders, when they gang assault one of the fighting men. Between the three, they send the aggressors away. Retaliation is heavy: their school is destroyed, and they are banished.This film may be best known for an uncredited cameo from Jackie Chan before he became an international star, but it is a decent film in its own right. While not quite as action-packed as "Lady Whirlwind" (which came out the same year from the same director), there is a better plot here, and the production value from Golden Harvest is noticeably higher.A decent copy has been released from Shout Factory. While it is not pristine (this may not even be possible) and does not have much for special features, this is a film worth checking out.

Lady Kung Fu is one of the greatest movies to watch if you like martial arts films. There are scenes in the film that take a while to pass (boring), but other than that, is packed with fantastic Hapkido skills from Angelo Mao, Grandmaster Ji Han Jae, Carter Wong, Sammo Hung, In-Sik Whang and the others. The end fight-scene between a black-bear student and Yu-Ying (Angela Mao) has a great choreography blend from the beginning of the fight till the point when Yu-Ying's eldest classmate jumps in to take on the black-bear student's teacher. It is a bit disappointing to see the teacher use a sword against Yu-Ying's classmate, because of the limitations of techniques the classmate can do without a sword. You can't have a great sword-fight with only one sword! Apart form that, the whole movie's fantastic!

Well, it's been a while since I've written a comment about a movie. Hapkido aka Lady Kung Fu is Fantastic. Mao Ying, Sammo, and Carter are all excellent in this film. The reason I'm writing a comment is because recently I have been a little disenchanted by some of the 70's kung fu films that I have seen. People have said films like The Master of the Flying Guillotine or The Five Deadly Venoms are Fabulous, but it seems to me that although there is things that are mentionable in those films,they lack something, perhaps a story that just hooks you such as Hapkido does. The only thing I am sad about is that the DVD I bought was in poor quality visually, but it was still in widescreen. I've only seen two of Mao Ying's films--Hapkido and Dance of Death. Dance of Death exhibits Mao Ying's talents, but it lacks a bit in story. The difference between hapkido and dance of death is that in dance of death mao ying is constantly fighting scene after scene which could be a joy to watch...though as I said before the story lacks...HEY I just put two movie critiques in one...heheh Last words: Hapkido should be a classic and it should be on DVD digitally remastered, widescreen, with originally Chinese language and English subtitled for the world to love..by the way this is better than fist of fury in my opinion sorry bruce...bruce is great but this movie is better.