Lin Hsiao-Hu

Taiwanese horror film.

A young boy holds the secret to the coveted kung fu manual. A martial clan lead by Pai Ying hunt mercilessly for the book. Blind but not out, Lung Jun Er saves the boy and defeats the aggressors.

To free his girlfriend from her contract with a greedy madam, Shang Li (Don Wong) teams up with a cold-blooded thief called the Sparrow (Chiang-lung Wen) to hijack a large shipment of silver. But when the heist suddenly goes bad, Shang Li finds himself with blood on his hands and a price on his head. Martial arts superstars Angela Mao and Lieh Lo also star in this kung fu classic from writer-director Pao-Shu Kao.

The Taiwanese jump into the tokusatsu market with this tale of an evil scientist turning people into creatures to do his bidding. Adults are hard to control so he lures a group of boys to his lab. He doesn't quite have the hang of it and after several failures gets it working properly on Hsiao Po. The process is interrupted when Hsiao Wen takes a piss on the control panel. The boys escape and the process is eventually completed by the evil scientist's good brother, and we have our superhero. What follows is a group sing-a-long at an amusement park, motorcycle chases and fights between our hero and lots of bad guys in ridiculous costumes.

The plot is a standard revenge tale told in a concise manner that involves a boy witnessing his parents' murder at the hands of corrupt officials and growing up to achieve vengeance. The boy goes to Shaolin Temple to learn kung fu in a superb training sequence that ranks with some of the better-known Shaolin Temple scenes in kung fu cinema. By the time the boy has completed his training, he has grown up to be Carter Wong and soon sets out on his mission. He meets Polly Shang Kwan along the way and, after some initial antagonism, the two become allies and confront the villains. The bad guys employ a particularly clever maneuver involving dozens of imperial guardsmen performing a variety of formations on cue (including standing on each other's shoulders, three men high) as Sammo Hung bangs out different drumbeats. Sammo and Carter engage in a particularly exciting bout against the backdrop of a mountainous landscape midway through the film.