I have a 1000+ collection of martial arts movies. Every few years I start from the beginning and re-watch them in chronological order. I'm often surprised when I notice something I completely missed on previous viewings. This movie has a few firsts. Actor Fan Mei Sheng, a popular comic relief type actor in later films actually started out in regular sword fighter small roles. In "The Silver Fox", filmed the same year as this movie, he still looked rather lean. In this film he had a regular bare shirted fighter role but I noticed this is where the weight gain started. The fatter he got the more I enjoyed his roles. More important, Hua Yueh (along with James Tien) is often criticized for having no real martial arts training or skills. While that may be true, I was amazed to see the routine he did at about the 31 min 30 sec mark. There is a tracking shot, all one cut, in which he does at least 24 moves against 16 different attackers. That many consecutive moves without a cut is about as good as it gets on film for anyone. Nice moves Hua Yueh, I enjoyed that scene very much. Who knows what else I might notice a few years from now on review.
Review of Killer Darts
