A Taste of Cold Steel/Review

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< A Taste of Cold Steel
Revision as of 16:45, 13 August 2018 by Pete (talk | contribs)
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"Father, you have been killed by your enemy. The three of us swear to find out who is the killer and we will take revenge for you"

This is the opening line spoken by the First Sister of Three (and they're all called First, Second and Third Sister throughout the film) as the family gather in front of their father's shrine.

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It's also the ENTIRE PLOT of this movie, so apologies if this is a short review, but if any of you happen to know my stance on these kinds of things then as far as I'm concerned REVENGE!!!! and a whole lot of arse whupping is all you need to make a good Martial Arts flick and this Shaw Brothers feature has it all in spades, or in this case swords. (You also have no idea how difficult that opening bit was to write considering I needed to find four different ways of saying motion picture...make that five)

What little story there is revolves around Prince Lu Tien Hsia (Chan Hung-lit) and his old man having bumped off The Sisters dad so they could swipe The Violet Sword he owned (I could've made a purple headed sword joke there but that would've just cheapened us both). After he gate-crashes their wake like only a true asshole would The Sisters, aided by their cousin, fight him and his men off, by mainly stabbing everyone to death, before Prince Lu Tien Hsia jumps free through the celling like a suped up Mario.

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As The Sisters and their cousin plan how best to take REVENGE!!!! Prince Lu Tien is hiding out in a forest where he meets The Tiger Gang who he hires to go kill everyone and get The Violet Sword for his own nefarious means.

And that's it. The vast majority of this movie is given over to set pieces, where a lot of people try to lop each others heads off, which really isn't a bad thing when they're as glorious as these are.

From the scrap outside of Fort Gan, because of course The Sisters would live in a fricking fort, to the final brawl in The Tiger Gang's hideout A Taste of Cold Steel leaves charcter development passed out in the hall way and concentrates on what we've all come here to see, beautiful violence.

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Being a Shaw Brothers production, and one made during their golden period of the late 60's/early 70's, the fight scenes are a wonderful mix of flowing outfits, clashing steel and exploding red paint that hardly ever gives up from the get go and, quite frankly, if that isn't enough to convince you to watch this over a few drinks then there is no hope for you and you have no soul...seriously...I just... can't look at you right now...*sob*

Sadly this has yet too make it's way onto YouTube so you're going to have to buy it or set sail for the pirate seas (The Grindhouse Cinema Database in no way endorses the illegal downloading of copy-written material) but it really is worth it. And if you find that it's not to your taste, well I guess you could always swear vengence on me.

Plot: REVENGE!!!! Out Of 10. Fight Scenes: 10 Blood Soaked Clashing Blades Out Of 10!

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Neil Gray is a writer from the UK. The story goes that he was invented in a laboratory experiment that went horribly wrong and has spent years devouring every movie form and film genre that was foolish enough to pass his way until he is now nothing more than a hideous monstrosity, more celluloid than man.
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