Tie tou tie zhi tie bu shan (1977) User Reviews

Iron fingers, rebels and a bit of a twist at the end

[ckormos1 · 6/10 · 9 January 2016]

To summarize most of the movie, it starts with demonstration fights then Carter speaks to the kung fu students. He stops to treat a child with a broken arm. What a hero! Cut to the rebel's secret meeting. Kam Kong is a monk. Some people barge in and attack. All are killed except one escapes. Meet the bad guys who sent them. The good guys suspect a spy. Bad guys report to James Tien. Woo Gam meets him. He wants more money from the field marshal. The good guys have beaten up and imprisoned one of their own because he spoke up with a different view. He joins the bad guys as a spy. Carter dispatches men with a list of names. The enemies get it and decide to kill everyone on the list. (Or is the list a fake?) Regardless, there is a strong lack of action in the first hour. One fight at about 37 minutes. The spy is revealed and he kidnaps Carter's mom. Carter has to kill three guys to save mom. All of Carter's men abandon him because of the killings. (The third fight guy had excellent acrobatic skills). James Tien then reneges on releasing mom and Carter fights him but James is immune to the iron finger. The unbelievable plot twist is that the three guys Carter killed are not really dead. Smoking hot Woo Gam revealed James' vulnerability. For fans of this genre I would recommend it to watch and rate it as only a six out of ten for totally average with the fight quality making up for the quantity.

Stock kung fu heroics, enlivened by man mountain Kam Kong

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 12 December 2016]

RENEGADE MASTER is your typical Taiwanese kung fu story starring man of the moment Carter Wong who plays a martial arts expert with a heart. The opening scenes of the film see him not only kicking backside as is always the way with these kung fu stories but also taking a moment to fix an injured kid's broken arm. Before long the real plot of the thing starts, with veteran bad guy James Tien getting hold of a list of names and deciding to murder everybody on it and Wong fighting back in his own inimitable style. Kidnapping, fake death, and chaos ensue.

The plot is complex and relatively free of action, at least in the first hour; it saves most of the hard-hitting stuff for the climax. Hulking bad guy actor Kam Kong (who played the titular role in MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE behind all that wispy white hair) turns up and burns up the screen as always. Wong displays some great skill as the hero fighter although he remains impassive and oddly unsympathetic throughout. The fight scenes are pretty well staged but there aren't enough of them to make an impact. Thus RENEGADE MASTER is an average-to-forgettable instalment in the genre.