Shaolin Mantis (1978)
Reviewed by: battlemonkey on 1999-12-21
A Ch'ing spy (Chiang) is assigned to infiltrate a family suspectedof being Ming revolutionaries. Chiang becomes a teacher for the family's daughter, whom he eventually falls in love with. Plans for marriage are complicated when Chiang discovers the family is part of the revolution, and the family discovers Chiang's true identity. Chiang and his new wife fight their way through the family, but she is unable to fight to her full potential against her own brothers, and ends up being killed. Chiang goes to the woods and learns mantis fist by watching an actual mantis. He returns and kills the family, thus returning home to be the hero of the day. Amid the celebration, however, his own father kills him, revealing that he (Chiang's father) was also a revolutionary, and hated his son for killing heroes of the cause. The emperor then kills the father, and thus, everyone ends up completely unhappy and dead. It starts out looking like a comedy, then becomes a very bitter tragedy with constant unexpected twists. Interesting because David Chiang plays a Ch'ing spy, making this possibly the only movie with a Ch'ing hero--they are almost always the villains (this is similar to Liu Chia Liang's other film, CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA, which is one of the only films to feature non-evil Japanese). Chiang is actually a villain, at least historically, so Liu Chia Liang has broken yet more ground by providing a villain who is fully developed and thus, becomes the good guy. Usually, the villains just laugh a lot and kill.