Hitman in the Hand of Buddha

[pollypolly]

A very enjoyable film this one - I agree that the story lagged a little bit from time to time but Hwang Jang kept it on track with some awesome kicking. I hate comic relief characters but Fan Mei Sheng was great in this as a drunken, washed out master. Pretty essential viewing I'd say.

[peringaten]

The shot of Hwang with one lackey under his foot and another getting rolled off his knee, whilst he death stares his next victim, combined with the soundtrack is just ridiculously awesome.

Not wide, but Eastern Heroes DVD release includes the Korean cut as well as the theatrical... the Korean with a sightly inferior picture quality, but featuring a bunch of fighting and stuff not in the usual cut, roughly edited by Hwang himself they say...

Nice review emaxx, I was just recently thinking this film was strangely absent from this section...

[samtheseed]

This is a full fledged Korean production that was edited into a Hong Kong version by Hwang Jang Lee and his short lived production company. There are two versions, the HK and Korean versions(recently found in Seoul Korea, which was edited personally by Hwang), which have major differences, including the fighting sound effects, a reshot and edited Shaolin temple scenes, and a finale fight with Eddie Ko that last 15 minutes longer than the HK version. The Korean version is the best, and in both versions, the music score sare excellent. The Korean version is available on the Eastern Heroes special edition DVD. Both versions are well written and the fight scenes are beautifully shot by Hwang, Mang Hoi, and Corey Yuen.