Lady Whirlwind (1972)

That was an excellent one.

Fantastic!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Tien (Angela Mao, as fierce and magnetic as ever) arrives in town to exact revenge on Ling (a solid and likable performance by Yi Chang) for abandoning her pregnant sister and thus driving said sister to commit suicide. Although Tien agrees to help Ling take down the leader of a local gambling syndicate, she nonetheless still plans to avenge her sister's death which she holds Ling responsible for. Director Feng Huang, working from a taut and compelling script by Yi-chung Hua, relates the absorbing story at a quick pace and stages the rousing rough'n'tumble fights with brutal'n'bloody brio. Naturally, Mao handles her martial arts fights with characteristic poise and agility as she mixes it up with a bunch of guys all at once. Sammo Hung plays a sniveling thug who Mao beats the living snot out of. Moreover, the strong theme about honor and revenge along with a surprising element of compassion gives this picture additional depth and substance, with an especially unexpected, yet still satisfying conclusion. Joseph Koo's spirited score and Yu-tang Li's dynamic cinematography are both up to par. Recommended viewing for Mao fans.

When Angela Mao is off-screen, this movie is mediocre to a fault. Not bad, but of little interest to anyone but a serious Hong Kong movie geek. But when Mao is on screen, she's electrifying.It's not just her charisma, although she's got buckets of that. She has a magnificent gift for selling a move that transforms what would be at best a serviceable fight scene into something riveting and dramatic. In the build up to her first fight in the casino, Mao flashes an ironically contemptuous sneer that sends icy chills down your spine. At the end of the fight she beats the crooked casino boss with a cold fury that's thrilling and appalling in its savagery.What's really unusual is how the movie doesn't do anything to soften her character. Often the girl in these movies is there to be raped and killed so the hero can take revenge. Sometimes she's sifu's daughter, who fights pretty good for a girl but is ultimately there to be rescued from the boss. None of that for Miss Tien. She is Nemesis, come to punish the hero for his past misdeeds. The question is: will she let him live long enough to redeem himself by fighting the boss of his old gang? This curious twist transforms a run-of-the-mill early 70s Kung Fu flick into something compelling and different.

"Miss Tien, thank you for saving me." "Forget it. I just didn't want somebody else to kill you!" This film was directed by Huang Feng (who made 18 films in the 1970s alone), and stars Angela Mao. Not sure if Mao is well known outside of martial arts circles (probably not), but she probably should be -- why let Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee get all the credit? Although I know very little about the martial arts film genre, I feel like this might be one worth seeing. If for no other reason than the fact that literally everyone is kung fu fighting -- there are hardly any scenes without a dozen guys trying to defeat Lady Whirlwind (and losing).

This is a Golden Harvest movie starring Angela Mao. One thing to note is that early Golden Harvest movies had very good quality, and it is recommended that whenever possible, they should be viewed in remastered DVD. The difference between the original and the faded copy is like night and day, and drastically changes the viewing experience.Released in the United States as Deep Thrust, the shabby title doesn't do justice to the action contained in this movie. Angela Mao explodes with her signature moves in this movie. Did she learn new style of martial arts within a year of making this movie ? It seems likely as her previous movie "Hapkido", and this movie has drastically different level of moves compared to her earlier movies.This movie, Hapkido, and When Tae Kwon Do Strikes all has similar looks and feel to the story and appearances. Anti-Japanese sentiment is strong on all three movies, but this is probably due to the bombastic success of Fist of Fury starring Bruce Lee from a year earlier. the scene where Bruce Lee destroys the sign that says "No dogs and Chinese allowed" really caught on at the time.This movie is a step down in production for some reason from the previous "Hapkido", and looks almost like a Shaw Brothers film. The good is as mentioned earlier, Angela Mao's moves are fantastic in this movie, and she was in the height of her beauty in 1972. It would have been better if there were more of Angela Mao's action in this movie, but even as it is, it's still a very good kung fu movie, and is recommended for viewing.