Lo Lieh - The Chinese Cinema

The Chinese Cinema

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Lo Lieh

A collection of 6 posts

In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man (Cha Chuen-yee, 1990)

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She Shoots Straight

In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man (Cha Chuen-yee, 1990)

The Web of Death (Chor Yuen, 1976)

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The Web of Death (Chor Yuen, 1976)

Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)

Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)

A twist on the master-student narrative, where the student, a petty thief and scoundrel (‘Dirty’ Ho Jen, played by Wang Yue) has to be tricked into following the master (Gordon Liu), who himself turns out to be a Manchurian prince. The Manchus are almost always the villains in these stories,

Mad Monkey Kung Fu (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)

Mad Monkey Kung Fu (Lau Kar-leung, 1979)

If I had to pick a favorite Shaw Brothers director, and thankfully I don’t, Lau Kar-leung would be my choice. His visual style isn’t particularly innovative or beautiful, and he doesn’t bring the raw, anguished physicality that distinguishes the work of Chang Cheh, or the sense of

Killer Clans (Chor Yuen, 1976)

Killer Clans (Chor Yuen, 1976)

Showing more of a noir-by-way-of-Yojimbo influence than most Shaw Brothers films, this Chor Yuen-directed adaptation of a novel by Gu Long shows that there’s more to kung fu movies than simple revenge and enlightenment plots. Chor takes his time setting up a world ruled by devilishly clever gangsters demanding

Executioners from Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung, 1977)

Executioners from Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung, 1977)

The anti-Qing struggle and the destruction of the Shaolin Temple is a common narrative backdrop in kung fu movies. Respectively, they’re kind of akin to the role the Civil War and Little Big Horn play in American Westerns. The Temple story is a subset of the larger Qing-Ming war,