To Kill a Mastermind (1979) |
---|
Director: | Sun Chung |
Writers: | Ni Kuang |
Starring: | Wang Lung Wei, Fei Ai, Tat-wah Cho, and Kin Ping Chow |
The Review |
---|




The narrative within To Kill a Mastermind is a pretty interesting subject. This isn’t your typical martial arts film, where our heroes are up front and center throughout the duration of the movie. Instead, this is a film where the villains seem to take up considerably more screentime during the majority of the movie. For nearly the entire first thirty minutes of the film, the audience deals exclusively with this rogue group of devils known as the Qisha society. We are not introduced to any strong heroes during this time, but are only given vague reminders that there are good guys somewhere alive in this world. This seems to be a film that takes place in a realm outside of the much more traditional depictions found in The Kung Fu Instructor. There are no well structured heroes who are out to do the right thing. Only bland and vanilla cops who will try to do the emperor’s bidding in the midst of all this danger. There is a point in the film, where the Qisha surround a young man who they intend to kill, and he questions, “where is the law around here?” This is a question that seems to resonate quite a bit throughout the film.




The Conclusion |
---|
