Blu-ray: Thundering Mantis

LIMITED TO 200 HAND NUMBERED COPIES

The great Leung Kar-Yan (AKA Beardy) stars as an innocent fish merchant who one day finds himself in the bad books of some baddies. His only hope for survival is to learn the deadly Mantis Fist from a goofy old master (Chin Yuet-Sang ) and fight with everything he’s got! 

Yes, Thundering Mantis is a shameless rip-off of the martial arts comedy template popularized by Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master, but it’s also an amazing display of Leung Kar-Yan abilities and is filled with spectacularly action scenes choreographed by the great Robert Tai (Ninja: The Final Duel). Plus, it features one of the most jaw-dropping finales the martial arts cinema history. And that’s saying something! 

Leung Kar-Yan worked with Chang Cheh, Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo-ping and all of Hong Kong action cinema’s greats, but he’s never gets the respect he deserved. Gold Ninja Video is proud to present Thundering Mantis on Blu-ray along with an exclusive commentary track, a video essay on his career and Kar-Yan’s criminally underseen kung-fu comedy Fearless Dragons. 

SPECIAL FEATURES

• A feature-length audio commentary track by Backrow Cinema’s Carlo Vanstiphout and The Important Cinema Club’s Justin Decloux 
• FEATURETTE: Nobody Beats the Beard: An Introduction to Leung Kar-Yan 
• FULL-LENGTH BONUS FILM: Fearless Dragons (1980) 
• FEATURETTE: Anatomy of a Kung Fu Climax with Action Choreographer Alex Chung 
• Liner Notes by Justin Decloux, Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh 

ABOUT THE TRANSFERS

Eagle Claw Classics series is dedicated to preserving and celebrating widely available, but little respected, martial arts cinema. The films on this disc have not been remastered, but efforts have been made to present them in the most visually pleasing way with the element that have been made available