Review of The Bells of Death (1968) by Allan C — 11 Feb 2017

I'm not familiar with director Feng Yueh, but he'd been making movies since the 1930s all the way through the 1970s, and I quite liked the gritty and stylish approach he took in the Shaw Brothers revenge story.

The plot is pretty routine. A young man's family is killed by bandidts and his sister kidnapped, so he hones his martial arts in order to rescue his sister and exact his revenge. I think what makes this film somewhat unique is that it forgoes the usual elegant fighting you got in most marital arts films of this era and have more of a down and dirty style of action.

There's a lot of shaky cam work and more medium shots during fight scenes than you usually get, which had the impact of making the fights seem more intimate and personal. Despite being unfamiliar with any of the cast or crew, I found this a very good martial arts action film.