Life Gamble

1979 • 96 minutes

About this movie

Legendary director Chang Cheh was in a transitional period. The men he had made stars (Jimmy Wang Yu, Ti Lung, and David Chiang among them), had moved on to their own projects. Soon his new star, international idol Alexander Fu Sheng, would also look for other productions. So Chang used this opportunity to test the star power of some new talent, namely a Taiwanese Opera artist (Kuo Chui) and a powerful Chinese muscleman (Lo Mang) – who were soon to become the foundation for his internationally popular “Venom” series. Teaming the trio with the top supporting actors (Ku Feng and Wang Lung-wei) and the prettiest starlets (Lin Chun-chi, Shirley Yu, and Hui Ying-hung), he told an entertaining and exciting tale of a kung-fu blacksmith taking on four famous robbers while a villainous gambling boss plots to destroy them. The resulting thriller was another winner for the vaunted filmmaker.

Ratings and reviews

This early Venom classic displays some of the signature roles that most of the Core-Venoms ended up playing throughout the tenure of their careers at Shaw Brothers, as Chang's-Cohorts. The storyline is very similar to an old Hollywood Western: Gold, Girls, Death, Justice, Betrayal, etc. It's all the elements of a fantastic Martial-Arts film that's needed to make it legendary.

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Great classic