Reap The Whirlwind

In Western cinema the female action hero is a rare thing. Up until the 1980s it was completely absent from Hollywood. It was the preserve of exploitation cinema, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or Coffy, and Eurowar, which was an ocean away from Hollywood. And there are a couple of British comedy spy thrillers like Fathom, and some Soviet propaganda.

On the other side of the world, in the mid Sixties, Come Drink With Me was one of Shaw Brothers' finer pictures. The wuxia starred Cheng Pei-pei. A trained dancer, she brought ballet to violence. In Japan there were contemporaneous film like Lady Snowblood (1973).

In Hong Kong the newly formed Golden Harvest company got in on the action with its first film, The Angry River (1971), starring Angela Mao. It wasn't the first film that the company released; that was The Invincible Eight, in which Mao, Nora Miao, and Lydia Shum had prominent roles. She played Lee's (Bruce Lee) sister in Enter The Dragon and could go toe to toe with the likes of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.

Eureka Entertainment are brining out Reap The Whirlwind, a collection of four films starring the Lady Kung-Fu, Beauty of Steel, Angela Mao. The 2K restorations are split between three discs. There are the original language versions and the English dub of each along with audio commentaries, trailers and a few alternate scenes.

Those familiar with Hong Kong action movies will remember the really scrappy quality in which they were available. From grainy thrice copied VHS to dodgy ten DVDs for a fiver box sets whose manufacturers had spared every expense. Aspect ratios were sliced, the sound was wobbly, the dub terrible or the subtitles non-existent (learn Mandarin while you watch), or it was the bastardised Roger Corman version. Maybe you got to see something in acceptable condition late at night on Channel 4. The restorations change that for these four films. One thing that comes to the fore is director Feng Huang shot composition. The unrestored trailers (which are fun to watch) are of the quality you used to get, if you were lucky.

The four are:

The Angry River (1971) - In this wuxia the evil leader of the Lunar Sect is trying to dominate the martial arts by dishonourably assassinating the righteous leaders of the other sects. The daughter (Angela Mao) of a gravely injured leader must travel to Sorrowful Ghost Valley, crossing the Angry River, to find a herb to heal him. She trades her kung-fu abilities for it and must travel back defenceless with Lunar Sect on her tail.

Stoner (1974) - Taiwanese police officer Angela Li Shou-hua (Angela Mao) and Australian cop Stoner (George Lazenby) join forces to put down a 007 style super-villain drug lord in a comedy thriller that riffs on the more disreputable aspects of 1970s pop culture.

The Tournament (1974) - Plot wise a somewhat bitty. In order to pay off the protection money is 'owed' to a gangster two students of kung-fu take part in a kickboxing tournament. It goes disastrously wrong, one of the students dying in the ring. The survivor returns home, bringing shame on his kung-fu master father and the whole martial arts community in Hong Kong. Unable to cope with the ridicule from his peers, the father dies by suicide. The son and his sister Lau Siu-Fung (Angela Mao) travel to Bangkok in order to restore Kung-Fu's reputation.

The Himalayan (1976) - Unrequited love and a nefarious plot at a sham wedding in Nepal. Kao Chu (Sing Chen), after murdering the real one, marries a fake relative to Tseng Ching Lan (Angela Mao), daughter of a rich and powerful kung-fu master (Shan Kwan). He then proceeds to do away with everyone between her and her inheritance. Rescued from death by the man who actually loves her, Tien Chiang (Tao-liang Tan), she joins him in learning an ancient form of kung-fu and taking revenge. It ends a little downbeat with a choice between love and duty.

The English dubbed versions of the films are, to varying degrees, of a lower quality than the original Mandarin versions. The English version of Stoner is not only a bad dub but loses ten minutes, some of the best bits.

The audio commentaries are all informative but of varying quality. If you want to know more about these films, and Hong Kong action cinema in the 1970s, they are a good resource. What can be found on the internet (English language) ranges from woeful to fabricated.

What you get in this package is Angela Mao in three fun films and one, The Tournament, that is historically interesting. They are in the best condition that you are ever likely to see them in. There is enough accurate information in the commentaries if you are curious.

Reviewed on: 25 Aug 2026