An early effort from legendary Shaw Brothers director Chang Cheh, 1966's martial arts epic The Magnificent Trio won't bring anything new to long-time fans of the genre, but everything here is done extremely well with a good deal of polish, making this highly recommended viewing fare for aficionados of old school kung fu, especially if they are devotees of the movie's stars.

A remake of the Japanese chambara film Three Outlaw Samurai, The Magnificent Trio takes place in the village of Mati, where the local magistrate's (Lui Ming) abuses of the populace cause a small group of rebels to kidnap his daughter (Chin Ping). Eventually bolstering their ranks with the titular group of fighters (Jimmy Wang Yu, Lo Lieh, and Cheng Lui) the villagers gain enough courage to take out their insidious leader for good.

Like many of Chang Cheh's films, a small plot description doesn't go too far into how deep the story gets. Full of tenuous alliances and broken oaths, the story here feels like it has a lot of depth, even though it really boils down to your usual revenge plot present in many kung fu pictures. This might actually be a negative aspect to some, as the movie does take a while to get going while the characters are introduced and their motivations are laid out.

But for this particular reviewer, the intricacies of the story paid off in the end, as there was actual real interest developed for the characters. Instead of the too often used time-killer of twiddling of thumbs waiting for the next action scene old school kung fu movies bring, the exposition displayed here was actually enjoyable to watch. It was also nice to see a period piece like this that treated the females in the story as real people and not just jade vases -- though some of this can probably be attributed to the actresses being bigger stars than the male leads at this point in time in Hong Kong pictures, to the point that they are actually given top billing.

Action-wise, The Magnificent Trio doesn't set the world on fire, but it's still fun stuff. Jimmy Wang Yu and Lo Lieh were very much in the neophyte portion of their careers here, and had not yet developed the badass onscreen personas that would win over viewers from all over the world in subsequent years. But, under the tutelage of action directors Tong Gai and Lau Kar-Leung, seeing them fight each other and then band together works very well, and goes a long way into making The Magnificent Trio something well worth watching.

RATING: 7.5