Killer from Above (1977)

It’s Buddha palm vs Mantis fist in a royal rumble featuring two exciting Kung Fu actors-Lo Lieh and Carter Wong.

Lo Lieh is trying to find his master who was betrayed by his own brother. Besides betraying his brother, Carter Wong is busy manipulating a tournament to select the next chief so that it will end in his favor. Lo Lieh goes for the twofer and attempts to find his master and stop Carter Wong. There are double crosses, double-double crosses, twists and turns and of course a lot of fighting. Killer from Above does inject a little levity into all the death and betrayals.

The biggest drawback to this movie is the camera work. It’s like the director figured out some tricks he could do with the camera and threw in a lot of ridiculous shots: the swirling shot, upside-down shot, rapid close-ups and the like. Fortunately, he seemed to tire of them after the first quarter of the movie and settled down for the rest.

I’m always pleased when a kung fu movie has a plausible plot and follows through fairly logically and the twists and turns make sense. In that, this movie succeeded. Above all, Killer from Above has a great cast-Lo Lieh, Carter Wong, Lung Fei, and Cliff Lok. I grade Kung Fu movies on a different scale because these movies were for a specific audience 40-50 years ago. Killer from Above may not be an award winner but Lo Lieh and Carter Wong were entertaining, the fights were good and the story was engaging. If you enjoy kung fu movies, it’s not a bad way to spend 90 minutes.

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