Ni Kuang Movies

Five Deadly Venoms tells the tale of a martial arts master who commands a student to track down some of his other students and get them to stop those that have used their skills for nefarious ends. The Centipede, The Snake, The Scorpion, The Lizard, and The Toad must decide if they will join together to obey their old master's wishes. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Chang Cheh directs this old school Shaw Brother produced kung fu yarn. The film opens with members of the Ten Tigers group getting attacked by a pair of mysterious assailants. The film then flashes back several years previous to focus on Ming partisan Chu (Ku Feng) who is on the run from Manchu forces. Local merchant and kung fu enthusiast Li Chen-chau (Ti Lung) gives the fugitive shelter in his pawnshop and quietly recruits some of his fellow martial master associates to help protect the lad. When Li's professional rival rats him out, Manchu official Liang (Johnny Wang Lung-wei) not only orchestras his army but fools a couple other kung fu masters including Beggar Su (Phillip Kwok Tsui) into helping his cause. After a heated battle, Li manages to convince Su to joining his cause, thus forming the Ten Tigers. The film then snaps back to the original storyline, where the identities of the mystery assailants are revealed. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Lau Kar-leung directs this martial arts yarn about competing kung fu schools locked in a bitter rivalry. Meanwhile, the master of one school Huang Chi-ying (Ku Feng) is having a hard time controlling his son Wong Fei-hung (Gordon Lau Kar-fai) and his son's friend Yin-lin (Mai Te-lo) who get their kicks by posing a kung fu masters. Even after getting drubbed in a match with a real kung fu ace, the two continue to play the part, going so far as to hire opponents to take a dive. Soon Master Shan (Johnny Wang Lung-wei) of the rival Jing Wu school gets wind of Fei-hung's bragging and subsequently breaks Yin-lin's leg. Soon Fei-hung realizes that he must get serious and fight Shan in order to save his repudiation and that of his father's school. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Lau Kar-leung follows up on his 1978 classic with this comic kung-fu flick which is more of a parody than a sequel to the original. Two-bit con artist Chi (Gordon Lau Kar-fai) convinces a group of desperate workers at a dye mill who have been denied their pay by their evil Manchu bosses that he is none other than the legendary martial arts master San Te. Chi tries to hide his utter lack of kung-fu ability until he gets humiliated by crack kung-fu fighter Boss Wang (Johnny Wang Lung-wei). Chi scurries to the Shaolin temple hoping to develop some real ability. Initially he is turned away by the monks until San Te himself takes pity on the guy. There Chi learns the skills he needs to take out Wang and thwart the baddies. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Master kung-fu director Chang Cheh spins another period martial arts epic. As government official Yang Yu-hang (Sun Chien) prepares to ship a wagon full of gold to end a famine in the hinterland, he learns that the villainous bandits from the Chi Sah gang -- led by the seeming invincible character with an appendage made of precious metal -- are plotting to steal the load en route. Instead, they give everyone a miss and swipe the stuff before the journey commences. When the villain's cart throws a wheel, they are attacked by a shadowy government agent named Hai To (Phillip Kwok Tsui), who displaces incredible fighting abilities when blind drunk. The gold is returned to Yang, but the Chi Sah gang vow revenge. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Sun Chung directs the 1978 martial arts action film Avenging Eagle, a kung fu film from the Shaw Brothers. Ku Feng plays the king eagle, a man who raises orphans to be his own personal goons in an outlaw band called the 13 Eagles. Ti Lung plays the rebel orphan who strikes out on his own, leading the rest of the group to want him dead. Ti Lung joins up with a mysterious warrior (Alexander Fu Sheng) and proceeds to take down the outlaw leader. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

The fury of the Venoms series combines with the ferocity of classic martial arts films in this installment of the Brave Archer series featuring a cameo by Japanese screen legend Alexander Fu Sheng. When a mass murderer begins dispatching with martial arts masters, it's up to one of the slain masters' best students (Kuo Chue) to defeat the maniacal killer once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In this martial arts actioner, a vengeful ninja leader takes on his cohorts after they kill his closest friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Hong Kong filmmaker Lau Kar-Leung directed this excellent period-action film, one of the most highly acclaimed productions of the Shaw Brothers studio's later years. Its success is rather remarkable considering its troubled production. Young martial arts star Alexander Fu-Sheng -- who plays the sixth son of the Yang family -- died tragically in the middle of production, causing a hasty rewrite which shifted the film's heroics to the fifth son (Gordon Lau). The flow of the story doesn't suffer much, if at all, but it tends to veer from accepted legend as it tells the supposedly true story of a Sung dynasty-era massacre perpetrated on the Yang family by General Pan Mai (Ku Ming) and his Mongol allies which leaves only two of the large family's males alive. The sixth son manages to get home to tell the horrifying tale, but has been driven mad by his experiences (the plot device used to write out Fu Sheng). The fifth son has been aimlessly traveling the countryside, where he has another encounter with General Pan's troops and barely escapes with his life. Hungry for revenge, he decides to wait and become a Buddhist monk at the Ching Ling Temple in the meantime. As might be expected, his burning fury and lust for blood don't sit very well with Buddhist philosophy, and he is quickly asked to leave the temple. Yang number five is not so willing to do so, and promptly shaves his head and insists that he is staying, much to the monks' chagrin. It isn't long before word of her son's survival reaches Lady Yang (Lily Li), who orders her daughter (Kara Hui), the eighth Yang, to disguise herself as a man and bring the fifth Yang home. Yang number eight does as she is told, but is captured by General Pan's troops on her way to the temple, causing Yang number five to leave his hiding place and try to save her. The family's legendary pole-fighting technique is amply demonstrated throughout in superbly choreographed martial arts scenes orchestrated by the director, Ching Chu, and Hsiao Hou. Johnny Wang co-stars with Phillip Ko and Lau Kar-wing. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi