Murder of Murders (1978)

"You're not known as a hard man for nothing!"

The Murder of Murders aka The Massive is not your typical revenge kung fu flick. It's a murder mystery where nearly everyone in town is hiding a secret and wants to find a fortune in stolen gems with a little kung fu thrown in for good measure.

The Jade Dragonfly, a jewel thief, has been hitting all the major cities. When Lo Lieh comes rolling into town and wanting to buy some jewels at a high end shop it doesn't take a genius to know who the culprit is. He manages to get away with 6 precious stones but not before the town's inspector tells him everyone in the shop is a suspect and he'd better not leave town. If the thief isn't caught in five days, the inspector will resign. It seems like everyone in town is hunting for the stolen gem stones. Lo Lieh seems unbothered and has no problem dealing with the cops and baddies until he's poisoned and dies on the spot.

The Jade Dragonfly's brother, Chi Kuan Chun, shows up looking for his brother's killer and he has a plethora of people to choose from. The local gambling den boss, Yi Yuan, and his gang of thugs, including Phillip Ko Fei, Lei Ming, Lee Chiu, and Shih Ting Ken all have had motive and opportunity. Yueh Hua shows up as an art forger with a bad habit of serving suspicious tea. Miao Tien plays The Light in the Darkness, an assassin who uses a pole with a paper lantern to fight his opponents. Phillip Ko Fei uses a pipe with 490 poisoned tipped darts and Lei Ming has a poison dart fan. Chin Kang is the no nonsense straight arrow hard fisted Inspector. As a fan of Taiwanese kung fu movies, it's a grand slam of actors and stunt men to enjoy fighting as they scramble to be the one to obtain the stones. As one character says, "Never think a man has enough money because that's a lie." There are a couple of twists at the end of the movie that given the casting didn't seem too surprising but gave a little depth to the plot.

Lee Chiu was the martial arts director. Most of the fights were decently fast with a variety of weapons as stated before. The fight between Chi Kuan Chun and Yueh Hua was a stiff as Yueh's acting. The fights featuring Chi and either Phillip Ko Fei or Lee Chiu or Chin Kang were far more entertaining. A couple of fights were shot in the dark and with the aged film's fading were more difficult to see.

The Murder of Murders was a fun "who done it?" with plenty of villains and shady characters to choose from keeping the guessing going until the last minute. The fights were better than average 1970's caliber especially for low budget Taiwanese fare. As always, I grade on a curve for these old kung fu films.

3/6/23

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