The Heroic Ones

In the last years of the Tang dynasty the warlord Li Keyong, who came down from the north, fights on the emperor's side to put down a rebellion. His thirteen adopted sons are his generals. As the thirteenth son, the youngest and the most gifted, comes to the front, two of his older brothers are taken by jealousy and make a secret arrangement with the enemy. That crack inside the family produces heavier consequences than the war does. Chang Cheh made this two hour martial arts film for Shaw Brothers, and it was one of the highest grossing Hong Kong productions of 1970. The crowded battle scenes and the passages shot on horseback enlarged the scale of the genre at the time. David Chiang plays the thirteenth son, Ti Lung one of his brothers, and Ku Feng the father. Chang Cheh's account of brotherhood and betrayal takes its most crowded form here.