EMPEROR OF SHAOLIN KUNG FU is a workable entry in the kung fu genre, shot in Taiwan on the cheap but with enough familiar faces to make it worth a watch. The film has perhaps one of the most arresting opening scenes of all genre cinema, with the defeated Ming emperor choosing to accept suicide over humiliation and attempting to take out his daughter at the same time. The princess survives, albeit missing an arm!
The story that follows takes the usual episodic format as wandering characters come and go out of the story. There's the typical white-haired villain and the usual gamut of underlings and bandits getting in the way. Nancy Yen plays the one-armed princess as something of a fighter which is a little different from the usual one-armed-guy fighting films. Lo Lieh plays a good role but has way too little screen time while first-billed Carter Wong only appears halfway through the production as a butcher with a few tricks up his sleeve. Sadly, although the fight scenes are plentiful they're simply not very well choreographed, looking slapdash rather than skillful, leaving this only an average kung fu story.
The story that follows takes the usual episodic format as wandering characters come and go out of the story. There's the typical white-haired villain and the usual gamut of underlings and bandits getting in the way. Nancy Yen plays the one-armed princess as something of a fighter which is a little different from the usual one-armed-guy fighting films. Lo Lieh plays a good role but has way too little screen time while first-billed Carter Wong only appears halfway through the production as a butcher with a few tricks up his sleeve. Sadly, although the fight scenes are plentiful they're simply not very well choreographed, looking slapdash rather than skillful, leaving this only an average kung fu story.
