Tou tiao hao han (1971) User Reviews

did somebody mention - revenge?

[winner55 · 7/10 · 27 June 2006]

A famous hero is guarding the transportation of a supply of gold and jewels. Attacked by bandits, he successfully fights them off. The Bandits vow - revenge! The chief of the bandits goes to ask help from a brother member of his martial arts clan, but the brother won't commit crime - so the bandit chief vows - revenge! Instead he hires a group of archers, and they kill the great hero. When his son and daughter here of it, they vow - revenge! Measnwhile, the bandit chief kills the whole family of the clan brother who wouldn't join his clan so the brother vows - revenge! Meanwhile, the bandit chief hires a super-swordsman to fight against the clan brother; since this is an insult to his previous super-swordsman, the latter vows -revenge! Meanewhile, a group of bandits dressed as zombies, who were previously defeated by the clan brother, show up to take their - revenge! After which the new super-swordsman shows up and disposes of the clan-brother's left arm and right leg; the clan brother learns how to fight using only prosthetic limbs - just so he can take his - revenge!

Obviously, this is a film about world peace and how we can all learn how to get along together.

Actually, a nonsensical but enjoyable Hong Kong swordplay film from the mid-'70s.

My copy is on a bargain-cost DVD with a second feature, "Fury at Shaolin Temple" - a Lai bros.- Godfrey Ho chop job that almost stars Gordon Liu - almost because he obviously quit in mid-production, and in half "his" scenes his character can only be photographed from the rear to hide the fact that he isn't Gordon Liu; since the stand-in is about a foot taller than Liu, this doesn't quite work. Personally, I think Liu should go hunt down the Lai bros. and get his - revenge!

Great! Just great! Great Kung-Fu! Your technique is matchless!

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 9 July 2007]

No, it is not the incredible beauty of House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, as it is the early years of Hong Kong chop socky, but it is an incredible experience.

Trading on the success of Bruce Lee, many films like this were released. The actors in this film, with the exception of the villain Hung Lieh Chen, only made one or two movies besides this one.

The action is almost non-stop. As soon as one bunch is dispatched, another takes their place. We see an incredible variety of weapons used in martial arts - some that I have never seen before. There is the typical kung fu with magnificent leaps to rooftops and even flying at times -actions we are used to seeing in the current films.

A satisfying chop socky treat.

"If I lose, I will cut off my own head!"

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 28 July 2007]

It takes a special sort of person to watch these older Hong Kong martial arts films, as the average person will no doubt watch them and laugh themselves silly at the stupid physics, silly plots and hapless dubbing. But if you are like me, you'll consider the cheesiness as all part of the film's charm and understand that this is all part of the genre. In this light, this is a slightly better than average film. Just try to ignore the silly special effects with involve flying heroes, explosions, exploding golden Frisbees, people catching arrows in flight and throwing them back and killing the shooters and many other impossible tasks.

The film is about a fight within a family clan. One member is evil but claims that he is seeking a man with a whip to get revenge--while what he REALLY wants is to murder him and steal a government gold shipment. A fellow clan member, Lei Peng, urges him to abandon his revenge--and he later realizes that it isn't about revenge after all. When this happens, he takes the gold himself and plans on returning it to the government. In the meantime, the evil dude and his toadies attack and murder all of Lei Peng's family.

Later, the guy with the whip's children seek to kill Lei Peng--thinking he was the one who murdered their father and stole the gold. But, since they want the gold, they pretend to want to help Li Po to find out where it's hidden. In addition, a lady in white joins their merry gang. The four of them eventually have a major showdown (after they realize Li Po is a good guy) and the action and silly special effects reach a very strange and odd conclusion when Li Po seemingly arises from the dead to beat the baddie and his evil henchmen.

Despite the silliness of the plot, this is a pretty good film with decent fight scenes--it won't lose your interest if you are a fan of these fantasy films. Plus, there are some really dopey moments that are so unintentionally funny that I loved them, such as when one man said "If I lose, I will cut off my own head"--huh?!

See Bolo Yeung from Bloodsport play a complete wimp

[caycefuture · 10 January 2007]

One guy asked in his review of 'Ninja killer', Who is that cop guy? That's Cuneyt Arkin my friend, Thurkeys answer to 70's Kung-Fu. In this film he kicks oriental butt, Istanbul style http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035067/ However, take note this protagonist is not credited anywhere in the films listings. The guy gets girls on horseback, knocks people off roofs, and holds a grin to the last inch of celluloid for what? No mention whatsoever? Not even by IMDb. Come on guys seriously. Anyway thats Cuneyet Arkin C.U.N.E.Y.T A.R.K.I.N.

Movie any good? Maybe. Maybe you want to steer the cheek a few hundred degrees and get kicked by another Kung-Fu flick. Free will huh? Ain't it marvelous. Perhaps I like this movie because I am a Turk. To me it's like gold. The rooftop fight is sped up to Benny Hill proportions. It can make you laugh so don't be afraid to live a little. Have you seen 'Bloodsport'? Then you'll know the guy with the huge pecs, he's Bolo Yeaung. Here a complete prat. A whimpish coward with crap Kunf-Fu check him out. He gave Van-damn a hard time more than once.

Nostalgia with 70's flavour. Bruce Lee wannabes get slapped sideways like extras from enter the Turk. Punishment is adjudicated by a Turkish waiter type with more than cheese. Feel free.

Sprawling wuxia fight flick

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 3 August 2016]

FEARLESS FIGHTERS is a 1971 wuxia epic clearly indebted to the likes of A TOUCH OF ZEN and DRAGON INN. It features a sprawling tableau of characters who spend the film forming alliances, betraying each other, and fighting. There's a heck of a lot of fighting, enough to fill the entire movie from beginning to end, and for a film shot in Taiwan this looks very impressive: colourful, sun-drenched, utilising a good quarry setting for many of the running battles, and with some bloody effects and weapon play too.

The film was produced by the Sun Wah Motion Picture Company. IMDb has little info about them but they do a good job of rivalling the bigger Shaw Brothers studio here. I didn't recognise any of the cast and crew but nobody really puts a foot wrong. Some viewers may call for a little more story to go with the endless fight scenes, but I was happy enough to kick back and enjoy the above-average combat.

Various plot ingredients include: a weird 'zombie style' of fighting; disabled fights; lost limbs; a villainous 'devil ripper' bladed weapon; poisoning; white haired masters; sword breaking; lost limbs; a whip fighter; lots of flying and impossible jumps; and various swords and containers shoved into the mouths of sinister henchmen. It's well shot throughout and while it might not be a classic, FEARLESS FIGHTERS is certainly an involved and entertaining film.

The First Corny Martial Arts Movie

[oldschoolbx · 1/10 · 21 January 2019]

Nothing but a complete insult to all Martial Arts movies playing here in USA during the 1970's Grindhouse period. End of story.

Better than average classic wu xia flick!

[Movie-Misfit · 7/10 · 21 July 2019]

Fearless Fighters is a big scale early seventies swordplay classic that isn't shy on cast, extra's, costumes and action!

Filled with a lot of familiar faces from that era, Fearless Fighters is worth a watch in its English (widescreen) dub as it delivers some hilarious moments, of course unintentionally. Its use of over-the-top characters and mad weapons adds to that, but all can be forgiven as the film is just non-stop kung fu and swordplay action.

This typical revenge feature could almost be mistaken for a King Hu film, and is only jarred by dribbles of bad edits here and there taking away from the polished look a Hu directed film would have.

All in all, Fearless Fighters does not fail to entertain and plays like an early epic of Chinese cinema and definitely a classic that fans will enjoy!

An Insult To All Martial Arts Movies

[oldschoolbx · 1/10 · 29 December 2019]

After when I saw this crap on VHS, I never bothered to watch it again

This is the greatest Kung-Fu movie ever, and a possible life-altering experience for all who see it.

[dolemite-14 · 10/10 · 29 April 1999]

Fearless Fighters is one of the best times I've ever had watching a Hong Kong chop-socky flick. Everything in this film is massively over-the-top, from the hundred-foot leaps straight up that the actors so effortlessly perform to the fight scenes where lone warriors sometimes kill up to ten opponents at the exact same time. The really funny thing about Fearless Fighters is that none of the actors in the movie seem to know Kung-Fu at all! There's none of the brilliantly choreographed fight sequences we're used to seeing in Kung-Fu movies- the actors look like they're pretending the whole time, while flying through the air, jumping over lakes, using outlandish weapons- it's hilarious. Also of note is the English dubbing- it's excellent. NOT as far as the acting goes, mind you (it's TERRIBLE), but the lip-synching is almost flawless...very impressive. The story involves The Eagle Claw fighting clan, lead by To Pa, one of the most fearsome screen villains of recent memory. To Pa and the Eagle Claw clan robs the Almighty Imperial Lightning Whip (who looks exactly like Ming the Merciless) of government gold meant to aid the poor, tragically killing the Lightning Whip in the process. Lei Pong, the film's honorable hero (and follow member the Eagle Claw clan), attempts to stop the theft, and in turn is framed for the crime and jailed. Meanwhile, the Lightning Whip's children, Mulan and Chen Yi Chung, seek to wack to fool who offed their pops. First they suspect Lei Pong, but after a daring jailbreak, Lei's honor, good looks and charisma wins over the Lightning Whip's children as allies, and the true culprit is revealed- the bloodthirsty To Pa! In an effort to kill the one man who can stop his evil plans, To Pa uses his ill-gotten gains to hire an army of freaks and weirdos, including such colorful characters as the Soul Pickers (Flying Sparrow and the Solar Ray- you HAVE to see these guys), the Sword of all Swords, the Dragon Raiser brothers, some wacko with a blond wig and Tiger Claws, and the infamous Loner, also known as...One Man Army. This guy is so totally evil, and with his Deadly Twin Sword, he is one baaad man! The resulting conflicts between Lei Pong and company with To Pa's minions are among the most ridiculous ever filmed! The amateurish, yet outlandishly overstated fighting combined with high-flying antics (complete with some really poor cable work) and horrible stunt jobs make for some gut-busting good times, right on up to the earth-shattering ending. This film is a must see, not only for fans of martial arts movies, but anyone interested in opening up their minds to a higher plane of existence, as seeing Fearless Fighters may very well change your life! Oh, an on a personal note: The actor who portrays To Pa has the best delivery of the phrase "mince-meat" I've ever heard.

Daft old-school kung fu fun.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 14 November 2021]

Fearless Fighters is not a good film in terms of martial arts: the movie is wall-to-wall fighting, but none of it is particularly impressive. That said, the film is still plenty of fun thanks to its likeable protagonists, and a crazy array of villains with silly names and even sillier weapons.

The film opens with Chen Chen Chow, AKA the Lightning Whipper (Chi Ma), escorting a shipment of government gold when he is attacked by bandits -- rogue members of the Eagle Claw fighting clan led by the evil To Pa (Min-Hsiung Wu). Chen Chen Chow sees off the bandits, but they return in stronger numbers, and he is forced to flee without the gold, and with two poison arrows in his body. When righteous Eagle Claw brother Lei Peng (Yuan Yi) learns that To Pa has dishonoured the clan, he nabs the gold and takes it to his home, planning to return it to the government, but before he can do so, he is wrongfully arrested for the theft and imprisoned.

The Lightning Whipper somehow makes it home and, before dying, tells his son Chen (Ming Chiang) and daughter Mu Lan (Ching-Ching Chang) that he was ambushed. The siblings vow to avenge their father by killing the man who has been arrested for the crime, unaware that Lei Peng is innocent. Meanwhile, To Pa and his men go to Peng's home to retrieve the gold and slaughter Peng's family. Peng's brother escapes from the house, carrying Peng's son on his back, but they are soon cornered by To Pa's men; help comes in the form of beautiful swordswoman Lady Tieh (Ming-Ming Hsiao), who is too late to save Peng's brother, but who rescues the young boy by killing all of the attackers.

In town, Chen gets himself thrown into jail to get close to Peng, but after helping the man to escape, he becomes uncertain about the man's guilt; Mu Lan, on the other hand, still wants to kill him. While on the run, the trio are attacked by bandits, who they defeat with ease, and are joined by Lady Tieh, but To Pa has been busy recruiting help, hiring the deadliest killers and kung fu experts in the land.

This is where the fun really kicks in, crazy new foes including Flying Sparrow (armed with hand-held curved blades than can be thrown when needed), Solar Ray (who uses shiny discs to launch energy blasts), Sword of All Swords (not as great as his name suggests), the two Soul Pickers, Vampire Phantoms (fanged fighters in blackface), and arrogant Loner AKA One Man Army. When Peng is thrown off a cliff by To Pa, a random old man appears and equips Peng's broken body with extendable prosthetic limbs with retractable blades, which comes in useful when faced with To Pa's Devil Rippers (ridiculous looking bladed gloves). While not on the same crazy level as Master of the Flying Guillotine (but then what is?), Fearless Fighters delivers enough bonkers action to make it an entertaining time-waster, especially with characters being able to leap great heights, levitate and fly when necessary.

Oh dear , but SO BAD it is worth a watch !

[crazylegscain · 2/10 · 25 September 2006]

Even though when I buy a film like this I don't really expect good acting, story, or quality I buy them anyway just in case there is some good fighting / scenes in there. Unfortunately this one was a dud and a total waste of money. It is so bad that it is actually quite amusing in places so it gets a 2 out of 10. It is deffo frisby material but before you wang it out of the window it is worth one watch because you don't want to miss out on : What is going on with Bolo? The lead guy is a joke and is meant to be some kind of tough guy but looks like a mixture of Charles Bronson/Don Johnson/Columbo or whatever you cannot take this guy seriously.

In the early seventies I saw a Variety Mag. headline stating: "Chop-Sake Flick Fad Fades"

[tlweschler · 9/10 · 26 September 2006]

Maybe this flick in this style didn't get it's just do in the distribution network back in the day. If it had I am sure the above headline would not be written as it was ... this movie may have saved the genre! Today the style is revered by all who see and understand that 'fun-in-flick' no seriousness allowed kinda movie. Maybe a headline in Variety back in '72 would have stated: 'Flying Kung Fu With Women As Masters Too!' I didn't see any mistakes worth mentioning as the whole movie was a 'not-mistake' a phrase my high school students, who taught it to me will understand. The story was well spent on the screen in a currency rare indeed, the action was so massively overdone it seemed like the people who made it must have influenced the modern 'flying masters' of this era.

typical 70's C martial arts movie salad bowl style

[r-c-s · 4/10 · 19 June 2005]

That's the typical salad bowl martial arts movie from the early 70's, when hong kong low budget movies were the new wave in cheap entertainment. The acting is poor, yet not unwatchable. The white martial artist looks like a Miami vice ripoff Don Johnson ripoff ante litteram. Bolo makes his figure as a henchmen's leader playing two drug kingpins against one another. It gets scenes shot in Turkey, so it hadn't to be a really really low budget flick.

The screenplay is a mess. You get drug kingpins & traffickers trying to cheat on their colleagues without a clear understanding of anything. You get lame subplots about romance. Many people run, like in the police thug telepictures, ex Inspector Bluey, etc.

You watch it, and suddenly you can't make a difference between it, the many "American ninja" hotdog movies & hong kong rubbish.

There is no Ninja in the movie, except for a fight scene where masked people overpower Bolo, who then just asks them who they are, and they take the mask off!!!

Cheap VHS feed even during the cheap VHS boom of mid 80's.

Unreally crazy and quite bad directing

[bickeler · 3/10 · 20 April 2005]

Wow this movie was a total head scratcher.Firstly I'd like to point out the cast is a bit off.Not only in who is in it but who the star is!And after watching this and checking all the names in the credits and checking here and yes googling it.You know what I have no idea at all!But it's not Carter Wong or Lau Ka Wen aka Chia Yung Liu aka Lau Kar Wing.It's the cop in Turkey yes Turkey who's a karate expert but no names in the credit fit?Anybody see this and have clue who he is?Anyhow the director of this movie is probably the worst part of it.The action is decent in fact some fight scenes are pretty good.However the story is choppy,the acting weak and the speedup of the final fight scene didn't help at all.Although I give it 9 out of 10 for location shoots!The director was intent on spicing this one up with romance and fun in the sun.And hey watch Bolo run run run!Actually there's too much running in this movie entirely.This really could have been a good movie if not for the director I think lol.Oh and don't miss Carter Wong's extended cameo in the lead role!

Oh here's the spoiler there is no Ninja Killer at all!

Bad editing creates decent sight gags

[sirdouglas46 · 5/10 · 30 January 2006]

I bought this movie unseen at Best Buy. They had a section of martial arts movies, about 30 in all. I actually let the IMDb fan review (on the back of the box) sway me- I should have known better. This film is pretty boring with a few exceptions. There is a quick scene towards the end where a man using lion technique ( I know that because he had silly lion claw gloves and ridiculous blonde hair that was supposed to resemble a lion's mane) gets taken care of in an amusing way.

I was looking for a good 70's supernatural kung fu joint like this one I saw that was totally creative- of course, I cannot remember the title. In it there is this scene where the local prefect receives an urn as a gift from the emperor. Instead of food inside, there is a clown type of guy. He looks silly yet proceeds to put up a good fight as he rolls underneath his opponent. At one point he breaks his arms through the sides of the urn and presents a simple paper sword from his mouth. You're like... what the $%&^? Yeah, well this movie didn't have enough of that kind of creative mayhem.

Better Than Expected, Still Hilarious

[monsterhunt-94296 · 4/10 · 17 February 2022]

Fearless Fighters is a 1971 kung fu action movie. Recently I watched The Shaolin Drunken Monk, an obscure kung fu movie, and thought it was hilarious so I might as well try out some other films of that nature. Watching this film I was actually very surprised at how good it was compared to The Shaolin Drunken Monk. First of all, I was surprised that there was actually some very solid cinematography in here. There were some shots that actually looked really good and some of the camera movements looked very nice. Unfortunately the film is plagued with these awful zooming effects that look terrible, combined with some of the worst editing I've ever seen. To top it all off, the whole thing seems like it's 10fps, so it just has this laggy feeling which really doesn't help an action movie. Speaking of the action, it's hit or miss. Some of it is good, but other times physics is just thrown out the window and some of the most hilarious and insane leaps and bounds happen. The sound quality is also very bad with awful dubbing, but compared to something like The Shaolin Drunken Monk the mixing here is actually pretty good. The sound effects are bad but you get used to them after a while, and I never found the music to be distracting, and overall volume-wise everything was pretty even. The film's story makes sense until the finale where a lot of things just happen out of nowhere and it all becomes a mess. The story is nothing groundbreaking but had some real potential. Overall, I felt that the execution fell flat and although there were actually things to like about this movie I wouldn't call it good. 4/10.