Yi ShenShaw Brothers Classics: Volume Six

Always a blast.

This set looks much better than Shout's Volume 5. These are mostly, again, very early Shaw Brothers films from the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly wuxia. Three of them are among the best of that era--The Black Tavern, Duel for Gold, and Twelve Gold Medallions. Those have not seen a home video release for more than a decade, and their DVDs have been long out of print and, in the case of the first two, nearly impossible to find.It's another handful of titles that make this box set worthy: Shadow Girl, The Black Enforcer, Na Cha and the Seven Devils, and Crazy Nuts of Kung Fu. Those four movies have never been released on DVD before. Back when Celestial remastered and released the Shaw Brothers library more than 20 years ago, they were skipped and only seen as bad bootlegs. Crazy Nuts is an early attempt at HK kung fu comedy that Jackie Chan and Co. later popularized, Na Cha and Shadow Girl are light fantasy films, while The Black Enforcer appears to be a strong wuxia offering from director Ho Meng Hua (The Lady Hermit, Killer Darts).The remaining titles are a mixed bag--The Young Avenger is a bit uneven but still worth a watch and Finger of Doom is a fun mix of horror and wuxia, but Swordsman at Large and especially Three Swordswomen are scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Which is just strange, considering that there are still stronger movies fans from this time period would have loved to see on Blu ray, like Lady with a Sword, Killers Five, The Long Chase, and even The Winged Tiger. Including one of those instead would have made this set a slamdunk.That said, it's still a really good line-up, between three true classics of the era and an interesting mix of four extremely rare titles.