Shaolin Mantis

The scholar Wei Fung is pressed into service by the Manchu emperor: he is to infiltrate a rebel family loyal to the Ming and bring back evidence. He gets inside the family, but it does not go as planned; he marries the head of the clan's granddaughter and becomes attached to her. If he does not return to the palace, his own family will be killed. There is no way out that does not cost him one side or the other. Lau Kar-leung made the film for Shaw Brothers, and it takes its name from the fighting style Wei Fung develops by watching a praying mantis. As in all of Lau's work, fighting here is not a display but a craft that has to be learned, and the training passages sit at the centre of the story. David Chiang is in the lead with Lily Li opposite him. It is a hard piece of work that does not offer the comfort the genre usually trains you to expect.