Synopsis: The Deadly Wooden Hag determined to get rid of the Devil's Knight Tiger Lin, tempts an array of top samurai fighters by offering the book of 9 Yin as a reward for his head. Watch her evil plan of destruction backfire in this incredible story of myth & swashbuckling samurai swordplay.

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Views: Although released on VHS by Ocean Shores many moons ago under the above title, this Taiwanese wuxia flick is better deserved of its original name Blood And Guts as there isn't a samurai to be seen. Although the characters in the English dub call each other samurai's (which I'm sure was never in the original dialogue at all), they are in fact swordsmen and monks of Chinese origin – with the film clearly set in the Taiwanese countryside. The film plays out like most typical wuxia films from this era, involving revenge and double-crossings, as a bunch of sword-swinging fighters roam the countryside to bring down one man. Cue plenty of flailing and wirework that gives said fighters supernatural powers, such as the strength to cut rocks in half from 20 paces, the ability to leap onto rooftops, and the skills to knock the weapons from 10 fighters with one move. Samurai Blood, Samurai Guts doesn't offer anything we haven't seen a hundred times before, but it also isn't completely dreadful and does try to offer enough of an entertaining tale with more than a few fight scenes...

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While its production date is listed as 1971, I was thinking that it might actually be from later in years given the style of its choreography and direction. That said, one of its fight directors was involved with the brilliant 8 Dragon Sword which was shot the same year and was probably even more inventive with its choreography. It was interesting to see how it recycled music tracks from later kung fu movies, including Jackie Chan's classics for Seasonal Films, but this would be down to its dubbing for VHS release coming about in the mid-1980s. Director Li Kuo Hua was never really a talent whose name caught on with fans of kung fu cinema, but this was probably down to his brief time in the industry having only directed 6 features between 1969 and 1971. In the same year as making Samurai Blood, Samurai Guts Li also directed Magical Power Of Fan Li Wa and Hellfighters which saw the return of this film's lead actor Chiang Pin, as well as a few others. Pin stars as hero swordsman Devil Knight and had been in the business almost since the early 60s before this, with over 20 titles to his name including The Mysterious Knight, Paid With Blood, Dragon Gate Swordsman, Duel With Samurai, and many more. This particular year proved to be quite a busy one for Chiang as he went on to star in no less than 16 features altogether, including the aforementioned 8 Dragon Sword which was a lot of fun and one of my favourite titles of his. Taiwanese actress Chen Li Yun stars as the Deadly Wooden Hag and the antagonist of the film, and Kang Ling playing a vengeful swordswoman in one of her few roles to date. Popular actor Wai Wang, who started in the industry in the late 1950s, stars as another villain of the piece – a role he has covered many times in his career having starred in over 180 titles through to the turn-of-the-century.

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The fights are handled by Huang Kuo Chu and Ho Wei Hsiung who provide a range of battles throughout that, while fun f or the most part, aren't anything too special. While Huang went on to work on some classic titles later in his career, 1971 would be his debut year as a martial arts director and started with director Li Kuo Hua on this and Hellfighters. From there, Huang would go on to work on (and often star in) films such as General Stone, One-Armed Against Nine Killers, Avenging Boxer, Mantis Under Falcon Claws, Shanghai 13, Secret Rivals 2, and many more. Huang would also direct 5 of his own features over the years including 37 Plots Of Kung Fu, Fight Among The Supers, and the Cat. 3 action-thriller Whore & Policewoman starring Michiko Nishiwaki. Ho Wei Hsiung, who came into the film world around the same time, has since starred in over 150 films ranging from the late 60s through to the early 90s, and worked on Samurai Blood, Samurai Guts as a fight director after his debut in From The Highway just a year before. As with all of these older films, its hard to give a fair judgement on such productions when all you have is a cropped version to watch, complete with bad-quality picture, and god-awful dub – although Samurai Blood, Samurai Guts most definitely entertains with the latter. While it will never go down as a genuine classic for most or even been seen by many, the film does have enough entertainment value for die-hard wuxia fans of classic Taiwanese cinema. As I always say though, it would be great to see a collection of these movies restored and released on Blu-ray someday, but I doubt very much that we'll get to see that anytime soon. Until then, it's down to old VHS releases, cheap DVDs, and dodgy YouTube videos to keep these forgotten classic titles alive!

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Overall: Hardly amazing, but Samurai Blood, Samurai Guts is entertaining enough and may only appeal to die-hard fans of classic wuxia cinema!