Clan of the White Lotus (better known in the west as Fist of the White Lotus) is the sequel to Executioners from Shaolin, but don't worry if you haven't seen that film. This is a pretty straight-forward entry in the Shaw Brothers' vast catalog of kung fu movies.

After killing the notorious Pai Mei (Lo Lieh), Hung (Gordon Liu) returns to his village and seems to be ready to finally settle down and marry. But the White Lotus won't let him go so easily. Led by the Chief (also played by Lo Lieh), the clan attacks the village and kills everyone except for Hung and Mei (Kara Hui).

Of course, Hung swears revenge and sets off to kill the Chief. However, Hung's kung fu is not good enough, and he is defeated. Downtrodden, Hung begins to study various forms of kung fu in the hope of finding one which can stop the Chief.

Like I said, the plot ain't exactly Vonnegut material here. The actors try and salvage what they can out of the exposition scenes, but they are hampered by a half-ass scripting attempt that relies way too much on comedy, especially at times in the film when tension should be building. In particular, the whole bit where Hung learns a feminine style of kung fu is just painfully unfunny and goes on for way too long.

But you can throw most of that sort of stuff aside if you're a fighting fan. The brawls in Clan of the White Lotus are top-notch. They're not the best that the Shaw Brothers studio produced, but given the fact that this was made at a time when both the studio and old-school martial arts movies in general were in a bit of a downward spiral, one has to think that the film-makers did the best with what little resources they had to work with.

Perhaps because of those budgetary restrictions, there's not a whole lot of variety in the combatants; the vast majority of the fight time centers on Gordon Liu and Lo Lieh. That turns out to not be a bad thing at all, since they're two of the top movie martial artists, and make each of their clashes seem fresh.

Despite the strength of the action sequences, at the end of the day, this reviewer feels that Clan of the White Lotus is a bit over-rated. The exposition scenes really drag down the momentum the fights create. Nevertheless, it's a very good old-school flick that should definitely satisfy fans of the genre.

RATING: 7.5