Huang fei hong si da di zi

This is a somewhat by-the-numbers screenplay performed and choreographed by a bunch of actors and stunt-men who were just going through the motions for their next paycheck, but it's a decent little movie. The movie kills a lot of time waiting for the final big showdown between the Four Challengers and the "Yangtze Four" hired by the Triads, but the final fight takes a full ten minutes and is a fair amount of fun. (It also counts as the first time I've ever seen a guy use a pair of hand cymbals as a weapon. It makes for an interesting sound design.)

One drawback is the dubbing. You don't expect subtle, layered performances in a mass-produced effort like this, but the ESL voice acting is almost unbearable at times. It sounds as if three men (tops) did the voices for all the villains, and they just yell their lines like they are shouting down a mine shaft. Minus at least one star for the dub job.

I got this movie as part of a public domain 50 movie DVD collection, so I think I paid a total of 50 cents for it. It was better than the other three movies on the DVD with it, and it was worth seeing once for curiosity's sake.