Shaolin Mantis
“I look forward to trying your shadowy fists!”
Shaolin Mantis is a 1978 Shaw Brothers film directed by <PERSON> which follows a young scholar who infiltrates a family and has to learn martial arts based on the praying mantis.
Missed seeing my boy <PERSON> in a leading role and so decided to put this one on — it’s weird, I’ve seen his early <PERSON> works and his late 80s work but that middle stretch is still a little bit of a blind spot for me.
This was pretty good — I’ll admit, <PERSON> playing the mother of <PERSON>’s love interest when she’s not only younger than him but has played his love interest multiple times really threw me at first but once I got past that, I had fun.
<PERSON> is his typical charming self and the action sequences, though not my favourite with him are strong (I got a kick out of him fighting <PERSON> and <PERSON>).
In terms of <PERSON>, I didn’t like this as much as Dirty Ho or <PERSON>, but his direction was strong, even if the storytelling felt somewhat slow at times (I did appreciate that final twist).
On the whole, this was solid enough, recommended. 378