4/5 More about a warrior's inner battle.
  by C. Palmer (Los Angeles)
The DVD has some good sword action especially during the sword tournament. The thrust of the story is the hero's obsession with finding the perfect sword. It makes this movie more of a film dealing with the humanity of the central characters than just another "chop-socki-flik". If it was just an action movie I would have given it 3 stars instead of 4. Its approach to dealing with inner turmoil makes it again, better viewed as a film than as an action movie.

4/5 Subtitles are impossible to read at times, but the movie is worth seeing
  by morgoth (omaha, NE)
Crash Cinema has released this, and they have made it clear that this is the best they could clean up the print. I am not usually one to complain, but the subtitles are burnt onto the picture and can be extremely hard to read. If you can get past that, then this is a must see for Jimmy Wang Yu fans.

Wang Yu is part of a family that is very respected. At the start of the movie the new King is looking to become Wang Yu's friend rather than his enemy. He decides to hold a martial arts tournament with the finest sword known to man as the prize. Wang Yu is absolutely obsessed with swords, so of course he has to enter the tournament. After winning the sword and adding it to his already huge collection, he finds out this is not the finest blade ever made. He goes way beyond obsession at this point and leaves to find a hermit who owns this supposedly #1 ranked sword. When he sees that it really is the best, he must have it. But, he finds out this old hermit isn't the pushover he looks to be. After learning all the sword skills he can, he comes back a year later to claim the greatest sword in the world.

This may come off as generic, but it is one of Wang Yu's finest roles. One of my favorite movies ever is 'Killer Constable', so maybe it is just that I love anti-hero movies so much, but I enjoyed this and it has a very memorable ending. Don't go into this expecting your average bad guy kills people and good guy takes revenge type of story. Oh no, it's a lot deeper than that. The costumes are wonderful and really help the movie and the acting is very good from everyone. The story will probably not go down in history as one of the best ever, but it flows along very nicely with Wang Yu giving a superb performance. The movie is all done on sets, but there is the occasional location shot that I could have used more of. I can't consider this a classic, but it's a good watch if you like old swordplays.

This is from 1971, and the action was much better than I thought it was going to be, mainly because Wang Yu sells it so well. Don't expect 'Hero', but the sword fighting is very good for it's time. 3.5/5

While the subtitles are hard to read, the story is still pretty easy to follow. The picture has noticeable print damage all the way through. Heavy speckling at times, some heavy scratches, verticle lines, and brief moments of more serious damage. Another company that releases rare movies is fittingly called Rarescope (BCI). I haven't had any problems with their picture quality, and this release from Crash Cinema looks a little bit better than Rarescope, so no complaints from me other than the subtitles. The picture is widescreen in letterbox format, so that is VERY nice to see. Sound is good. Not 5.1 or anything, but no irritating hissing sounds and crackling only occurs a couple times.