Thunderbolt (1973)
The Fei Long Society, under the administration of chiefs Lung Lin, Pei Fen, Chen Ying-Chieh and Lung's sister Lung Chu, enjoys high prestige. One day a swordsman, Hung Wei, comes to join them. Hung later gets admitted after impressing the other chiefs with his fine fighting ability. The society's sub-branches soon come under the attack of the Black Tiger Gang. The chiefs of Fei Long Society head off to the branches in an attempt to save the situation. In their absence, the Society's stronghold falls to Hung's hands. Chen and Lung are attacked by Hung and his men. Lung swears to bring Chen back to justice...
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You won't be disappointed!
Powerful
Fresh and Exciting
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
The theatrical release date is 10/11/1973 from Golden Harvest with Angela Mao, James Tien, Pai Ying, Lam Kau, Lee Kwan, Lily Chen Ching, Cliff Lok, Jason Pai Piao and action director Chen Kuan-Tai. 1973 was Angela Mao's third year with Golden Harvest and this movie came out just after "Enter the Dragon" and "When Taekwondo Strikes". It opens with Angela training and the men watching in admiration. Problem is, I did not see much to admire in the initial performance and that was the standard for the entire movie. The return of Pai Ying (as Hung Wei) is announced. He arrives and they have the usual introductory challenge fights. Next Chen Kuan-Tai and his bandit gang barge in but Pai Ying quickly sends them to Hell. There is a plot line involving a treasure map broken up into four and tattooed on four brothers backs. The brothers must leave the fort to defend attacks on their other schools. James Tien encounters Jason Pai-Piao. The fights are standard stuff and heavy on the trampoline jumps despite Chen Kuan-Tai listed as action director. Angela discovers the truth and they fight and she is prisoner. James also finds the truth, fights, and he flees. Angela and James then join forces and train for the standard final fight against Pai Ying. Though Chan Kuan-Tai and Angelao Mao are real martial artists and this was the year when it had to be real, thank you Bruce Lee, my only complaint was that all the fights looked alike, lacked style and creativity. I can't rate it any higher than above average and that was due to the execution of the moves only.
There are other sources that says this movie was made in 1970, and that's believable, because the style and cast is consistent with "The Invincible Eight" that was made in 1970. In any case this is an early Golden Harvest production, and is high quality production.Golden Harvest was a fledgling company in the early '70s, but they really had fresh new approach to movie making that's evident in this movie as well. First, their actors wore more colorful outfits, second, they worked lot more on character development, third, they had more three dimensional shooting style that featured more close up shots even during the fight scenes. Cinematography was also beautiful in all their early works. They also worked on recruiting fresh new faces that had elegant appearances, and they portrayed them to be that type of characters as well in their stories. Now all of this is evident on this film as well, which makes this one of the best movie of the early Hong Kong cinema.Angela Mao still had the classic old school Chinese hairstyle. She will be playing more contemporary roles with her trademark long pony tail within the next few years. She has a school girlish youthful looks that makes her stand out in any movie she stars in. In this movie, she looks even better as it seems that she's gotten used to acting in her movie roles, and just looks outrageously good. Surprisingly, even though she's over 60 now, she still retains this youthful appearance. Something her Hollywood counterparts never seems to be able to do.This is a great kung fu film from the early '70s, and is recommended for viewing, if you're an Angela Mao or classic kung fu movie fan.