Imagine if you will, a martial arts movie with the feel of an Alfred Hitchcock plot. The Black Tavern is one of those movies that draws you in with a simple singing of a song by a beggar who tells a tale of a fortune in gems easy for the picking which is being transported by an old gentleman and his two daughters. As he sings the diners in the restaurant each start to pay close attention to the words of the song and greed sets in and you know that they all of them plan on going after the treasure chest of jewels.What is so fun though, is that no one is who they appear to be. It is a cast of cut throats and thieves and no one trusts and is suspicious of the next guy. The fun starts when the old timer and his daughters along with their "hero" who comes to their defense when the first band robbers attempt to get their hands on the treasure and end of at the Black Tavern for food and refuge for the night, the movie takes off from here and never lets up for one moment!!! The fighting scenes will have you on the edge of your seat and if you are like me, covering your eyes a little as it gets a bit gory and gruesome but that too fits along with scheme of things in this classic Shaw Brothers movie. It is one that should not be missed by Karate fans and and Shaw Brother fans alike!

Although THE BLACK TAVERN is a tavern, it's also an inn- an INFAMOUS inn, run by known bandits. In one particularly shocking scene, we see one of the cooks preparing a meal- and using a human leg as the meat source. (Oddly, most of the visitors to the tavern/inn sit down to a meal at some point- meals that include fresh meat- but the implied cannibalism is never really mentioned again...) Ku Feng, as a bandit known as Whipmaster Zheng, arrives at the tavern looking to rob an official rumored to be passing through with a trunkload of bribes. He's not alone: before long, the place is crawling with bandits gunning for the official's riches. (A group of crooks called The Five Ghosts BECOME ghosts at one point; it's THAT bad at the tavern.) Ku Feng is joined by swordsman Zhe, who helps him gain the upper hand on the competition, but it's Lady Hermit's student (played by the beautiful Shih Szu) who's at the bottom of it all: SHE has spread the rumor to attract all the evildoers to the tavern so she can wipe them out. There are some decent fight scenes (Ku Feng uses a whip-within-a-whip) and some oddball characters throughout. Not bad, but not a top-tenner, either.

In BLACK TAVERN (1972), Ku Feng plays the pivotal role of Zheng Shoushan, the "Whip Master" and leader of a robbery band that takes over a remote inn, killing the brigands who already run it, to lay in wait for a traveling official who is newly retired and supposedly laden with treasure. In the course of it, he has to fend off numerous other miscreants drawn to the inn for the same purpose and must contend first with a mysterious lone swordsman (Kang Hua) who becomes an ally and then with a mysterious swordswoman (Shih Szu) whose agenda is initially unclear. Ku plays a truly charismatic bad guy here, to the point where we root for him and his gang for much of the film, especially as they kill off assorted other villains. He's pretty ferocious and uses his whip in some creative ways, including a sudden decapitation. Eventually, the official (Yang Chih-Ching) and his party arrive and some surprise defenders emerge and all hell breaks loose. In addition to all the fight scenes, it's fun watching the Whip Master and his crew take on the roles of obsequious inn employees to lull the visiting official and his party, all while switching into lethal force mode when such colorful bandit gangs as "the Three-Headed Cobra" and "the Five Ghosts of Xiang Xi" show up with ill intent. The excitement never lets up.Also worth noting is the second lead, Kang Hua (aka Li Tung), a tall, dark, intense-looking actor who plays the lone swordsman who appears early and gains the Whip Master's confidence, setting the stage for some later action. He proves quite a capable screen fighter and is given ample opportunity to show what a top-notch swordplay star he could have been had he won more parts like this. (I hadn't heard of him before seeing this, even though I've seen some of the films he's listed in.) Shih Szu is superb in her portion of the film and has an extended duel with Ku Feng in the final 15 minutes. It's quite a grueling battle and she gives as good as she gets and demonstrates why she was considered a successor to Cheng Pei Pei, Shaw's leading female action star in the late 1960s, who had left Shaw Bros. for Golden Harvest around this time. The dialogue even refers to "Lady Hermit," a character Cheng played in the 1971 film THE LADY HERMIT, also reviewed on this site, which co-starred Shih Szu as her student. Shih is evidently playing that character here.Yet it's Ku Feng who dominates BLACK TAVERN for most of its running time. There are numerous closeups of him where a narrowing of the eyes, an arching of an eyebrow, or a slight smirk convey enough key information to make dialogue completely unnecessary. Granted, the film is essentially an action-oriented variation on King Hu's DRAGON INN (1967) and not a classic Chang Cheh "heroic bloodshed" battlefest, but if you like this kind of film enough to seek out reviews like this one, you won't be disappointed. I must also add that the fight scenes were directed by Simon Hsu, one of Shaw's most inventive action choreographers, and he makes ample use of every space provided by the inn where the bulk of the film takes place and every prop contained therein. He specialized in scenes where multiple combatants engage each other on different planes and in different spaces, sometimes all in the same shot in real time, so there are few shortcuts or cheat shots. And there are lots of fight scenes here, so the cast members and stunt crew were kept pretty busy.

As the Shaw library is restored some real treasures are finding the light of day. This one is from a director I never heard of before, Yeh Yung-tsu, but the advertising called his films "distinguished". Now I usually ignore any box advertising but this time I didn't and what a nice surprise awaited.The films starts at a tavern as a vagrant monk comes in and sings a song. He tells a story about recently meeting a corrupt minister who is traveling with his ill-gotten treasures on a wagon. The inn is full of shady characters who all take an interest in this tale. One lone swordsman goes on the road and encounters the minister and his daughter and daughter's female servant under attack from some of the shady characters just in the tavern. He drives the attackers away and joins the minister on the road. They end up at an inn to spend the night. This is not an ordinary inn as it is run by some very evil criminals who are up to a nasty thing I won't describe here, you'll have to see. The inn keepers have some malevolent plans in store for the minister but it turns out that the minister is really the feared "Devil Whip" in disguise with his evil daughter and servant! Fights between bad guys ensue and the lone swordsman decides to join the Devil Whip in his plan to ambush the real minister when he shows up! But before that can happen all the other bad guys from the tavern show up in succession and have to be dispatched before their primary target shows up. Suddenly a mysterious young woman in white arrives who possibly could beat them all.I had a lot of fun with this film. More then many other Shaw films recently. The pace is quick, the fights are very well choreographed (if slightly sped up at times) and the story is good. Most of the film takes place in the inn but that doesn't create any problems for the excitement. Every character is distinct and interesting. Yeh Yung-tsu shows a solid directorial style. If a comparison could be made, this film is like a cross between King Hu and Chang Cheh. There are some surprisingly gory scenes but much of the film is light-hearted with a good sense of humor.Very recommended. I will be looking for other films from this director.