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The Bat without Wings, a master martial artist but also brutal killer
& rapist, is dead, he was killed 5 years ago by 26 masters of martial arts
... but of these 26, only 2 - Master Szma (Ku Feng) & Master Leng - would
survive, & while Master Leng lives completely cut off from the rest of the
martial world, Master Szma has vanished ...
Jump to the here & now, where Miss Lei Feng from the security bureau is
invited by Xiao to meet at the abandoned Tailung temple ... & while she has
never met Xiao she is flattered by the invitation of this martial arts master
& leaves her staff behind at an inn to meet him - the staff, it
should be mentioned, is soon poisoned & butchered at the inn.
At the temple, Lei Feng doesn't meet master Xiao but the Bat without
Wings, who doesn't seem dead at all, & they soon start a fierce fight,
but Miss Lei feng can chase the Bat away ... or so she thinks, as soon she
finds a maddened old duffer in a secret chamber under the temple, &
suddenly she is overcome ba the Bat, who just forces the name of who Miss Lei
Feng resembles to out of the duffer, then he hacks her to pieces.
The real Xiao (Derek Yee) meanwhile is hired by Miss Szma, Master Szma's
daughter, one of only 2 women the Bat did capture but not rape &
kill, to retrieve a priceless blade for her, the blade the Bat gave to her but
which was stolen. & as if that wasn't enough, soon afterwards Xiao is
visited by Lei Feng's father Lei Xun & her fiancé Han Shen, who hire him
to help them find her.
Xiao accepts both offers, sensing they must lead into the same direction,
& indeed, Miss Lei Feng is soon fond, all hacked up though - & so Xiao
agrees to accompany Lei Xun & Han Shen on a mission to avenge her death ...
a mission that leads through many a martial arts fight, poisoned pond & an
assortment of other traps to Leng, who defeated the Bat 5 years ago ... &
he seems to give our trio vital clues (like the fact that the Bat wasn't indeed
killed but driven to lunacy & chained up, & the identity of Ximen, the
second woman the Bat didn't rape & kill but gave a sword to), but refuses
to join in on their mission.
Our trio soon finds Ximen, a dead ringer of Miss Lei Feng, but she's already
fatally wounded & her sword seems to have been stolen, too, so our heroes
dash off to go after her killer, the Bat ... although it later turns out that
she is not really dead, but in league with Leng, who is secretly following our
trio, & just waiting for them to fight the Bat, to rake in the profits of
their demise (whatever that means).
& while our heroes are still trying to piece the puzzle together &
at the same time avoid all traps laid for them, everything becomes crystal
clear before our very eyes: The Bat who has killed Miss Lei Fend & a host
of other people was not the Bat at all, but Master Szma, who wanted to get his
hands on the 2 swords the Bat gave to the 2 women he didn't rape & kill as
they contain a map for a pricesless treasure, & Szma's daughter (who thinks
her father is looking for martial arts manuals though), who is in possession of
one of the swords, was never really robbed but hired Xiao to find her the other
sword. The real Bat proves to be the old duffer, who was always mad (&
homicidal) but now has really gone over the edge.
Soon Master Szma actually finds the treasure - of all places inside the
Tailung temple, where the story began & circled around ever since -, but
hot on his heel are not only Xiao with Lei Xun & Han shen but also Master
Leng with Ximen & company. It all culminates in a wild fight fith
poisonthrowing aplenty, which in the end though only Xiao, Lei Xun, Han Shen
& Miss Szma, who was tricked by her own father, survive, while the diueing
old duffer - or real Bat - sets the temple - & the tresure with it - on
fire.
Another one of Chu Yuan's mysteries set in the bizarre martial arts world
... & another great movie, that uses all the basic elements of a
(pulp-)whodunnit - like trapdoors, sliding doors, secret chambers, poisoning
& mysterious knife throwers - but beautifully integrates them into the
context of a martial arts film, set once again in the
extremely colourful but entirely artificial sets of the Shaw Brothers studios - which only adds to the
movie's quality.
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