We think we’re so cool today because women now regularly kick people in the face in prestigious action movies without having to take off any clothes anymore to get there, but, as usual, Hong Kong beat everybody to it decades ago. One of our heroes here is The Golden Swallow (Cheng Pei-Pei), a young woman who’s your classic ultra-cool Ming Dynasty-era martial arts fighter who can calmly beat up nine guys at the same time and can do more with a sword than Anthony Bourdain can do with some heavy cream. She’s after a gang of creeps who kidnapped her brother. Even the best action heroes need a little help from time to time though, and hers comes from The Drunken Cat (Yueh Hua), the village boozer who’s secretly a kung fu master when no one’s looking. It makes for a wholly modern action film of the time that sells its violence more with graceful choreography than with quick cuts and wires. That touch of “realism” helps make the cartoonish moments all the more exciting to an effect that holds up great fifty years later (and yes, we have been threatened with a possible forthcoming remake). Everyone in the 1960s was having New Waves and director King Hu brought to the table the idea of a classy chopsocky movie, meticulously directed with beautiful widescreen vistas, a film that has a lot in common with popular westerns and that boasts a simple story capable of crossing borders with ease.