The Boxer from Shantung

A gifted martial artist uses his skills to become a feared crime boss in Chang Cheh's typically brutal kung fu tale. Chen Kuan Tai plays the cocky but honourable country bumpkin with dreams of making his name in the big city, putting him on a collision course with the devious Boss Yang (Chiang Nan) and his axe-wielding gang. With its brassy opening theme, the film is pitched as a hard-boiled crime story, and it prefigures Brian De Palma's Scarface in its tale of a man who goes from rags to riches to ruin. This was one of eight films directed by the prolific Chang in 1972 alone, and it contains all of his trademark bloody mayhem, with characters punched, kicked and hacked beyond the limits of human endurance. The "heroic bloodshed" style clearly left its mark on the film's young assistant director, a certain John Woo, who would take action in a new and explosive direction in the 80s with seminal "gun fu" movies like A Better Tomorrow and The Killer.