Review 3. Duel of the 7 Tigers.

I can't beleive that it has taken me this long to give this film a look, it really is one of the genres unmentioned classics. The movie is brought to you by the people behind genre classic snake in the monkeys shadow, why this movie isn't better known is a complete mystery.
The flick is made up from an all star cast, including Cliff Lok as the hero, Philip Ko Fei as the karate expert villian. And what i consider the biggest treat of all is Charlie Chan as the monkey style expert.
The Opening credits give us a run down of the actors and their real life achievments in training teaching and competions, the movie was funded by the Hong Kong kung fu federation so many of the cast are experts and this movie could be seen as a way of promoting their styles.
The story begins in shaolin, the chief Abbott has just died and with no will left, the two best monks must fight each other to determine who will lead shaolin.
The losing monk travels to an island off the coast of Japan and begins his own school and style which becomes Karate.
Philip Ko his top student comes to China to prove Karate as the top martial art. He defeats all fighters. Cliff Lok with help from friends travels in search of masters in the hope of defeating the karate expert. They recruit masters in a number of styles, when faced against the karate champ they are all crippled. They decide to teach all their styles to Cliff Lok so that he can combine them to defeat his enemy.

The movie just doesn't let up through out. Non stop action is the order of the day and it really deleivers the goods. The first fight between the shaolin monks is superbly chorographed and sets the standard for those to come. I love animal styles and with the good monk adopting the monkey style the fight is nothing less than brilliant. As the movie progresses with see masters of lama, choy lee fat, hung, wing chun and dragon display their skills. It really is quite impressive seeing all these different styles packed into a single film. The training scenes are fantastic as well, watching Cliff Lok learn monkey style from Charlie Chan is a marvel. And Yeung Pan Pan is on top form as the female fighter. Not to mention that Casonova Wong Pulls in a great martial display and role as usual.
The ending showdown between Philip Ko and Cliff Lok is top ranking, lost somewhere between showcasing of shapes action and real life martial techniques.
This movie deserves recognition, definately an unsung classic.

5 out of 5.

The version which i have reviewed is the Eastern Heroes vhs tape. There is a offical uk dvd release from vengeance video, From what i have seen of this the sound and picture quality are both good it is presented in full screen. It sounds like a copy worth getting as the eastern heroes vhs has been out of print for a long time.

Picture:
Presented slightly letterboxed with small bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Good quality picture, colours are strong and contast levels are good. Eastern heroes were well known as a company that meant quality and love fro the genre. Overall this is a good version, specially when you take into consideration vhs kung fu quality.

Sound:
English dubbed, Clear and easy to hear. Slight crackle and hiss. And a low level background buzz through out, this never proves distracting of annoying.

Extras:
Vhs so none what so ever.

Overall:

A good release from a good company, a genre classic all collectors should own. Worth getting the vengeance dvd copy as even if it is full screen the vhs is only very slightly letterboxed so aspect difference is only marginal.