Search - Shaw Brothers: Shadow Whip Special Edition on DVD

Beautiful cinematography and superb extended action scenes.

morgoth | omaha, NE | 06/22/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you are not careful, you may overdose from all the whip action. The movie is only 80 minutes long, but you will definitely get your fill. The whip action is good, and the sword fighting is WAY ahead of it's time. Yueh Wah is known for being a good actor, and is also known to handle a sword pretty well. He is on fire in this movie giving one of his very best performances. The story is not bad, but not really worth going over. Cheng Pei-Pei is a young woman who finds out her uncle has a secret. Yueh Wah's character is looking to kill him because of this secret. Now we are left to wonder for a while whether or not he is guilty of the crime he is being accused of. Ku Feng also stars, and if you are a fan of Shaw Brothers movies, I am sure you know what kind of character he plays. Ku feng was wonderful even late in his career, and it is a treat to see him in his physical prime.

While a lot of Shaw movies are known as being confusing and boring, 'The Shadow Whip' is neither. The action is definitely the highlight, and there is plenty of it. Pei-Pei looks great using her whip, and Tien Feng looks better than I could have ever expected. Tien Feng is the guy who plays Bruce Lee's master in The Chinese Connection and plays Jackie Chan's master in The Young Master. Yueh Wah sticks with his sword and kills a lot of people. 2 of the action scenes go on for about 10 minutes. The undercranking is a tad excessive and not used to great effect, but you will not find a lot of movies from 1971 or earlier that have better fight choreography than this.

3.5/5

Picture quality is just about perfect, and the mono Mandarin audio sounds very good. The 5.1 mix is not so good. Mono is definitely the way to go. And the subtitles are very well written.

Special features include a behind the scenes stills gallery and 24 trailers. If you want to see a proper Shaw Brothers release, be sure to check out the movies Dragon Dynasty are releasing. Image's Shaw trailers are horrible, while Dragon Dynasty has a bunch of rare ORIGINAL Shaw trailers on all of their first 4 releases (including 'Buddha's Palm', 'Invincible Fist', 'Shaolin Mantis' and 'Blood Brothers').

Image has released nearly all of their Shaw library now (they only have like 25 titles), and I enjoy their DVDs. Great picture quality, and not very many problems to speak of. It sure beats the bootlegs."