Wu Pin-Nan

Before he was crowned one of the "Four Heavenly Kings", Andy Lau starred in the 1989 gangster film Runaway Blues. He plays Lam, a Taiwan gangster who flees to Hong Kong after killing a rival gangster. Hiding at his uncle gang boss Lip's place, he gets embroiled in more gang conflicts and is forced to be an informant for the police. Lam runs away to Guangzhou and Macau with Lip's mistress, causing an enraged Lip to be hot on his trail.

Silver Maid, a young girl, becomes caught up in the struggle between two warring sects, the Red Devils and the Black Devils. At the same time, she is on a quest to find the Fairy Fungus, which is the only means of curing her ailing grandfather. Getting it requires that she defeat a quintet of vermin-based fighters known as the Five Poisonous Creatures, who include among their number a giant puppet snake. This accomplished, everyone sets off in search of a magical superweapon called the Sacred Tooth.

In Chinese folklore a white snake symbolizes a woman, especially an evil type of woman, while a black bull typifies a man, robust, strong and virile. "Black Bull and White Snake", a film version of Young Nien-ts'u's best-selling novel of the same title, is exactly about a white snake-woman, having been sold into prostitution at an early age, is rescued by a black bull of a man only to fall back into the gutter again. A production from the Grand Motion Picture Company, "Black Bull and White Snake" stars Chiang Ching and newcomer Tien Yeh.

Cheung Ching Ching is superb, as usual, playing a blind girl who learns martial arts from an old master and who takes revenge on the Red Devil who murdered her entire family. Brilliant sword film as you'd expect from master auteur Joseph Kuo. —Wu Tang Collection