Scorching Sun, Fierce Winds, Wild Fire
(aka Scorching Sun Fierce Winds and Wild Fire, Any Which Way You Punch, Dragon Connection, Duel Under the Burning Sun)
1979; directed by Sun Kam-Yun

The "kung fu queen" Angela Mao does her feminine take on the classic Robin Hood character type in this fun 1979 Taiwanese production. While it was obviously made for next to no budget and the story is a bit suspect with lots of plot holes, there's more than enough fisticuffs featured here to keep fans of old-school martial arts happy.

Scorching Sun takes place in 1920's Shanghai, where the Japanese occupation of the city has caused a growing rebellion. One of the biggest figureheads in the movement is a woman known only as Violet (Angela Mao), who is actually the daughter of a local crime boss, Tung (Chui Fook Sang). While the rebellion has a lot of willing participants, they are short on cash, and so they send a talented kung fu fighter, Hsieh (Tien Ping), to find a treasure map, which just happens to be hidden inside of Tung's compound. Since Violet has been keeping her identity a secret from everyone, including other members of the rebellion, the quest to get the map won't be an easy one.

But's that not all! Tung is facing his own internal problems via his second-in-command, Wu (Cheng Yi), who not only wants to get the map for himself, but is also diddling Tung's wife. There's also a pair of escaped convicts (Lo Lieh and Dorian Tan) that may or may not be connected to the rebellion and the map, but seem to spend most of their time bumbling about the woods. When you add in some strangeness like a 1970's Cadillac being driven by one of the characters, the majority of the soundtrack being stolen from Star Wars, and classically bad subtitles like "he deserved to death", there are many points where Scorching Sun threatens to run off the rails.

However, the movie never seems to dwell too long in the story-telling department, instead favoring to showcase fight scenes. Though they're not up to the level of the upper-tier entries in the genre, and come off as somewhat dated, even when compared to contemporaries in its' time line such as Drunken Master, the brawls are frequent and enjoyable enough that the viewer can forgive (at least in part) some of this movie's shortcomings.

RATING: 6