Heroes of the East (DVD, 2008)

Thank buddha for Dragon Dynasty or I might have missed out on this film. I had never heard of it until it was re-released by the wonderful company. From the first time I saw it I was amazed at the contrasting styles portrayed in this movie. It is one of the very few that portray that japanese as honorable and not just the villains. The fights are done very well in my opinion and make for a good story.

Heroes of the East is a great martial arts movies that trascends the decades as a classic. This movie demonstrates the effort the Shaw Brothers put into developing a plot that allows you to enjoy the action. The first half is mostly character development and humor and can be slow, but speeds up in the second half where the hero is forced to single handedly defend the honor of Chinese martial arts against the master from 7 Japanese styles. Each battle demonstrates the power of each style and the cleverness of the hero in winning.

Other reviews have complained about the ending, but I think they are talking about the last minute of the movie. The ending did a pretty good job of tying the loose ends up and a movie has to end some time after all. Still the final showdown of Kung Fu vs. Ninjitsu is awesome and worth watching. This seems to be a rare occurence in martial arts movies, so this is a great one to witness this combat as each fighter tries to one up the other with surprise moves and weapons.