冷面杀手 (1972)

Tien Yeh and Tien Peng pass each other on the road traveling in opposite directions yet end up in the same tea house after the opening credits. (Are they related? Same suame. They also have in common that both of their careers exactly matched the golden age of martial arts movies from 1967 to 1984. Tien Peng would finish his career AKA Roc Tien. Yeh was exclusively an actor whereas Roc also directed and wrote.) The town jerk enters and beats the waiter. The waitress reins in Tien Yeh but it escalates to a brawl. After the fights the two Tiens talk a bit. I don't speak Chinese and my copy has no English subtitles so I do not know what they talked about. My copy is a computer file that plays as widescreen on my widescreen television. The resolution is equal to a typical (Not Bluray) DVD. Cut to important guy with beard discusses something with his men. Cut back to Tien Yeh talks to his mother. I read his lips when he said "Ma" so I know she's his mother. Cut again to Lee Kui-On trains with her kung fu master. Tien Yeh arrives for a sword challenge. After the fight he becomes a student. I am on a personal mission to watch every martial arts movie from the golden age 1967 to 1984. I have watched over 4000 movies and written over 1000 reviews as of the date of this review. I am past the point where I can expect to find proper movie restorations on store bought DVDs with English subtitles. Current technology is still not at the point to translate the Chinese dialog or subtitles so I am watching movies without knowing what they are saying. Surprisingly, some actors like Sek Kin were so good I could guess their dialog from their expression but most of the time that is not the case. In this movie by the 30 minute mark it was obvious who the good guys and bad guys were but otherwise I had no clue what was going on. The fights were standard fare for 1971. This means the best fight sequence for non-martial artists as actors demonstrated good power and focus and more than two or three moves before a cut. This movie met that standard. There is also nothing bad to say about the movie. Still, nothing plus standard does not add up to much. Overall this is average fare suitable only for a hard core fan of the genre who doesn't require anything more.