The arrogant but righteous members of the Iron Flag Clan aren't above getting in the face of members of the rival Eagle Hall Clan (who wear headbands with- what else- eagle feathers thrust through them). (And, while I'm on the subject of costumes: I happen to like the Iron Flag uniforms- black, with red trim, and black capes with red inner lining worthy of Hammer's Dracula. The costumes in most of these period pieces are excellent, and are worthy of the comic book superheroes whose exploits I loved as a child.) (And everybody in this one sports sideburns that would make Elvis envious.) The idea of using spears as flags was neat (as if, in being merely flags, they were somehow harmless and NOT weapons). When our hero, Luo Xin (Phillip Kwok), nicknamed The Iron Panther, gets tricked into leaving the Iron Flag Clan, he's hunted down and attacked by nearly a dozen assassins. One of the more interesting is an accountant, whose collapsible ABACUS is his weapon of choice. When Luo confronts the man, the assassin asks Luo what he thinks the assassin is up to. Luo's response is classic: "Calculating a dead man's debt." This, naturally, triggers an attack. One of Chang Cheh's best.
Review of The Flag of Iron
