Synopsis:

The original trailer claims this to be “A 5 Star production from Golden Harvest” with “an international action cast” and “must see – don’t miss it”. Well, that’s no empty hype. The trailer also identifies each of the martial artists and their specialties. There are so many stars that they don’t even mention Sammo Hung, who has a substantial part as a vicious Japanese enforcer.

There are actually two female martial artists in the film. Top billed Angela Mao (Broken Oath) steals the show whenever she’s on screen, in one of her finest performances. Anne Winton makes her sole film appearance along with teacher and mentor Jhoon Rhee (‘Father of American Taekwondo’) in his only feature appearance, as well. Rhee is actually the star of the film and his fighting scenes are quite impressive. Anne Winton delivers some good kicks but mostly gets beat to a pulp and provides reaction shots while Angela and Rhee take on the master villains.

This is a rather bleak and serious drama and the Japanese are presented as purely evil. There’s virtually no humor, but there are numerous beatings, tortures, killings, and even a little whore mongering. The two youths cause all the trouble by repeatedly ignoring the sage advice of the elders (specifically Jhoon Rhee). Rebellious rebels?

The real star here is not even Angela, it’s the truly excellent martial arts choreography.  When Angela is attacked by a gang of thugs, they don’t stand around in a circle and attack her one by one. They impulsively charge with no master plan, but sometimes 4 or 5 at a time and all attacking with drawn swords. This actually plays to Angela’s advantage, since they hamper each other as she nimbly outmaneuvers them, and there are more than a few ‘friendly casualties’.