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Murder Plot by Chu Yuan (1979)

I am a huge fan of David Chiang Dai Wai, but unfortunately this os one of those overly complicated Martial Arts films, that while it has some enjoyable elements, is just too convoluted, and even the enjoyable fighting can’t pull it out of it’s mire. The disc looks amazing though, as all Shaw discs do. It is blowing my mind how often I see Celestial Pictures DVD’s that look better than brand new US released DVD’s! What is up with that? This is one of those films that I had to take notes to try and do a review, and I am sure I missed much.

The great Peacock king has been killed, and now the people of the martial world are after a man called the Happy King. Shen Lang (David Chiang Da Wei) brings in a criminal and is invited with 6 masters of great martial schools to have dinner. Li Chang Hun of Yan Yi Mansion talka about a bloody battle that happened 15 years ago, which is the reason they want the happy king. Shen Lang sets out, and runs into his fiancee, Zu Qi Qi, who is very headstrong. He tells her he would meet up with her, but she refuses to leave. In Yi City a guy pays 500 Taels to find the reason why their have been so many deaths, and they are told about a tomb, where all the people went to find to find treasure and 12 hours later died, and there are supposedly a bunch of missing masters there as well. Shen Lang and Qi Qi head to the temple, and it opens, and they go, and there are many traps, and others who come in are killed. Shen Lang and Qi Qi end up running into Jin Wu Wang (Wong Chung) the Treasurer of the Happy King, and who will be there enemy, but they help him from the other people who think he killed the missing people, but Shen Lang vouches for him and is given 24 hours to find the missing men.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

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Shen Lang and Qi QI end up finding Mother Wang (Ha Ping) and her son Wang Wu Wang (Ngaai Fei) who have the men, using a special poison which knocks them out, and they fight them for the antidote.

Qi Qi ends up fighting a strange woman in the temple, when the head of the beggars clan named Panda (Danny Lee Sau Yin) shows up. Qi Qi loses her pendant and is captured with another woman who is Bai Fei Fei (Lau Wai Ling).

Panda fights Sen Lang and Jin Wu Wang, then end up fighting woman at temple and rescuing Qi Qi and Fei Fei. Shen Lang decides to let Fei Fei come along, which displeases Qi Qi.

They all get hit by arrows from Wang and his mother, and get Wang and the antidote, but the Wang’s escape, and they manage to release the prisoners, but the Wang’s got Qi Qi’s pendant and will use it to get money from her family.

Jin goes back to the Happy King.

Go to Qi Qi’s brother-in-laws’s house, when someone attacks. Shen Lang follows, and it turns out to be Fang Pan Yang (Wai Wang), the brother in Law, who tells that someone showed up with the money, and people have been hanging around the house.

Qi Qi and Panda end up in a fight with some attacker, who turns out tob e Wang Lin Huan, who they kill, but it was a double, and they get captured. Shen and Fang go to an inn, and get poisoned, and Wang wants to send Qi Qi to get ransom money, but she realizes Shen is faking, and they attack and take Wang Lin Huan, but because of Fei Fei, Qi Qi takes Wang on her own, and hides him in an inn.

Shen, Panda Fang and Bai Bai go to find Qi Qi, but run into an old man who is the Happy Chief’s Wine Man and they must fight him and his men, and they give chase. Fei Fei then tells Panda she is leaving, and leaves.

Panda meets Shen and they find Qi Qi, but Wang has escaped and attacks them, and they have been poisoned. They awaken and Madam Wang arrives, and she tells them she wants Shen to go befriend the Happy King, because she was his wife, and they will keep Panda and Qi Qi as collateral.

Shen goes to Happy Forest and meets the Happy King (Johnny Wang Lung Wei) and gambles with him, and ends up winning big, and befriending them. He then meets the Happy King’s concubine, and it is Fei Fei, who plots to meets him that night.

They meet, she tells him her father was killed by the Happy King, but when he admits he is there to kill the Happy King, she calls out Jin Wu Wang, who fights, but then admits he too wants to kill the Happy King. Qi Qi and Panda Arrive, having joined with the Wangs to kill Happy King at the wedding to Fei Fei.

At the wedding they bring their gitts, adn the Wang’s arrive, and pull out weapons. And when Shen and the others go to fight, they are poisoned by Wang, as it is a trap set to kill the warriors from the 6 schools, and she is still the Happy King’s wife. It tunrs out Shen and the others had used armor and are not poisoned, and out pops the Peacock King, who is not dead, and it Fei Fei’s father, and the Happy King was a traitor who killed him.

So they all fight, and the Wangs are killed, but the Happy King tries to escape through the water, but is surrounded, since 5 years before this is where SHen saved the Peacock King from death. Shen then kills the Happy King and all is well.

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Wow, and the story is more complicated than I wrote. Just too much!!

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