Massacre Survivor - expectations?

[falkor]

Whether you get to own Massacre Survivor on DVD or at least see a public performance, what would your expectations be?

Is it rare because it's crap? Has it never been released or picked up by a VHS distributor because it's not worth watching?

Many fans--particularly academics who avoid "bootlegs"--are under the misconception that anything unreleased isn't worth their time.

Will Massacre enter your Top 20 or even Top 10 favourites? Will Shih Szu' Crane be in your Top 3? What will the choreography be like? Who is the main villain? How many fight scenes will there be in the movie? What weapons will be in the movie? How will the villain be killed at the end? What is the application of the training scenes re: end fight? How will Shih Szu's Crane differ to what we have seen in other films? Is this the last Shaolin film that hasn't surfaced?

Perhaps you've heard from certain individual(s) that Massacre Survivor doesn't live up to the hype? That "hype" has mainly been generated by Toby and Dave "The Abbott", who were both lucky enough to catch a south London showing in the early 1980s; in fact, I think Toby actually projected it himself back then.

I thought the "rare=crap" thing was disproved time ago with Magic Blade, Cotton Mill and others, so I hope to settle this once and for all after Massacre is seen for the first time this decade/mellenium!

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Is it possible to get someone's opinion on this movie yet?

Or maybe I've missed someone's opinion on it? I've been reading all these threads trying to find out.

[odioustrident]

What is exciting for me is that we don't have much to directly compare this film to, at least by looking at who is involved.

The same production company did Face Behind the Mask, and although that film is great IMO, it was also a complicated wuxia mystery that I can get tired of. Massacre Survivor seems to have a more straightforward revenge plot, not to mention a focus on shapes that I don't remember from Face Behind the Mask (it has been a while though). Massacre Survivor also has choreographers with a superior track record next to the one who did FTBM.

The director of Massacre Survivor did two other projects with Corey Yuen, but Buddha Assassinator is an acrobatics kung fu comedy; we can't really compare them too much. As I had said before, the Massacre Survivor clip on youtube has more precise/intricate shapes than anything we saw in Instant Kung Fu Man. There is no flashy kicking from John Liu and HJL, but we have plenty of that around IMO.

Revenge of the Shaolin Master has Yuen Cheung Yan on choreography and some big players in the cast (Alan Chui, Lung Fei, Corey Yuen, others), a similar setup to Massacre Survivor. It was entertaining, but Massacre Survivor looks much bigger budget (eg it actually has nice props and sets!). The same things goes, IMO, for Hero of the Wild, choreographed in part by Corey Yuen with some more well known action guys involved.

I really think I will enjoy Massacre Survivor more than all the films I mentioned above. If it was made in 1978 (HKMDB says '79), then I would consider it a kind of missing link in Corey Yuen's action-directing career, as his quality really ramped up around (as it did for a lot of these guys IMO). He worked on Seven Grandmasters the same year, and that film has one of the biggest fanbases in old school kung fu!

If I had good reason not to buy the hype I would have said something, but I am about as excited as I can get.... Then again, why did Rarescope never release this film? Considering its potential, you'd think it would have been first on their list...

EDIT: Is the finale Shih Szu vs. Wong Gwan?