Shan dong lao da (1973) User Reviews

Fair attempt at action and a coherent story line

[ckormos1 · 5/10 · 12 June 2019]

It starts with a rape as an attention grabber with a nice pair of boobs revealed. Lisa comes to the rescue and uses the forbidden "dragon blow" to kill the would-be rapist. Charlie Chin, senior student of the Dragon Blow school disapproves. Lisa disapproves of his disapproval. She goes on to save a young girl from kidnappers and is on a mission to find her parents. The bad guys still want to get the little girl. The adventure continues.

Looking at the talent we have the same story three times over. Lisa, Charlie, and Woo Gam have been around making martial arts movies since the 1960s and we all know they are not martial artists. By 1973 authenticity and realism are expected in these movies. The stuntmen did their best to sell the moves but anyone who has seen a few of these movies will notice the actors martial arts has no power or focus, they are just hitting a mark and striking a pose. The movie is not a total flop and is watchable start to finish thanks to a simple coherent story line, good pacing, and passable fighting sequences.

It also has a short running time and some sequences end abruptly so I wonder if a few feet of film are missing.

Rating 5.5 but not for the action, for the fair attempt at action and a coherent story line.

Not too terrible action film

[JohnSeal · 4/10 · 15 December 2004]

If you can overlook the shoddy sets, painted backdrops, lousy dubbing, and mediocre martial arts, The Dragon Blows is actually a halfway decent and somewhat watchable little flick. It starts out in rip roaring fashion, with our heroine (genre veteran Chiao Chiao) watching an out of control man rip the bodice from a struggling farm girl. Incensed by this brutality and no doubt offended by the film's one and only topless scene, she rams her fist through a brick wall and kills the man with her distinctive 'dragon blow'. Enter the film's male hero, her brother, who scolds his sister for using this deadly and forbidden weapon. The story then commences in earnest, as brother and sister end up protecting a poor orphan girl who has a valuable jade necklace that a nefarious criminal syndicate is desperate to obtain. Much mayhem ensues, though the film remains chaste and relatively bloodless after its promising beginning. Like most martial arts cheapies, the film lifts musical cues from better films--most notably in this case, Psycho! The Ocean Shores video also includes some rather unique features, including a copyright notice plastered across the opening 30 seconds of the feature, and a narrated copyright warning after the film is over!

Warning - At least one print of Dragon Blows sucks

[lotekguy-1 · 4/10 · 13 October 2022]

The edition I found on a streaming service that shall remain nameless (though it rhymes with "boobie", of which two are coincidentally displayed in the opening scene) is one of many vintage chopsocky flicks I've struggled to watch because of poor image clarity. This one also suffers from continuity problems so extreme that they had to be the result of sloppy editing for foreign markets. That detracted from what was otherwise a decent story with a generous dose of fight sequences and a solid cast.

A man and woman who are skilled martial artists are on their way home when they stumble across the murder of an old woman and attempted snatching of her granddaughter. They thwart the thugs and spend the rest of the movie trying to help the lass find the parents she doesn't even remember. That puts them at odds with the incredibly large area gang chasing the girl to get a sacred (to them) object they think she has.

Lots of ebb and flow in their journey, adding up to what may have been a fine action flick. But events run absurdly out of sequence. A daytime group of fights switches to a post-escape night scene, then returns to the fights of the previous day that were still in progress. A bit later we see the girl in captivity, with no indication of how they grabbed her, or what happened to the pair of protagonists we last saw her with.

A more coherent print of this would probably earn at least a 6, so check out the source in deciding whether to watch it. Mileage may vary. Widely.