Killer Constable

Killer Constable
Film poster illustrates the main character Leng Tian-Ying
Theatrical release poster
Traditional Chinese萬人斬
Simplified Chinese万人斩
Literal meaningBeheader of ten thousand persons[4]
Hanyu PinyinWàn Rén Zhǎn
Directed byChih-Hung Kwei
Screenplay by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyLee San-Yip
Edited by
  • Shao-Hsi Chang
  • Hsing-Lung Chiang
Music byEddie Wang
Distributed byShaw Brothers (Hong Kong)
W.W. Entertainment (U.S.) [2][3]
Celestial Pictures [5]
Release date
  • March 28, 1980 (1980-03-28) (Hong Kong[1])
1984 (U.S.)[2][3]
Running time
92 minutes[6]
100 minutes [7]
CountryHong Kong
LanguageMandarin
Box officeHK$984,108.50 [8][9]

Killer Constable (Chinese: 萬人斬; aka Karate Exterminators, Lightning Kung Fu, Blood Brothers, or Karate Warrior [10]) is a 1980 Hong Kong martial arts-action film directed by Chih-Hung Kwei, starring martial arts star Chen Kuan-tai. The movie was produced by the Shaw Brothers studio and is a loose reworking of the 1969 movie The Invincible Fist [fr] by the film director Chang Cheh, a frequent collaborator of Chih-Hung Kwei.[11][12][13]

Killer Constable began a transition from the earlier Shaw Brothers studio films to the more cynical film noir approach of the later Hong Kong New Wave.[14][15] It was Chih-Hung Kwei's one and only period wuxia film.[16]

  1. ^ "Killer Constable (1980)".
  2. ^ a b Palmer, Bill; Palmer, Karen; Meyers, Richard (1995). The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies. ISBN 9780810830271.
  3. ^ a b BIB/Channels Television programming source books. 1989. ISBN 9780943174143.
  4. ^ Charles, John (14 June 2015). The Hong Kong Filmography, 1977-1997: A Reference Guide to 1,100 Films Produced by British Hong Kong Studios. ISBN 9781476602622.
  5. ^ "Celestial Pictures". www.celestialpictures.com.
  6. ^ "Hong Kong Cinemagic - Killer Constable".
  7. ^ "KMDB - 한국영화데이터베이스".
  8. ^ "Archived copy". movieworld.com.hk. Archived from the original on 5 December 2004. Retrieved 22 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ "1980 香港票房 | 中国电影票房榜".
  10. ^ "Killer Constable". Hong Kong Cinemagic.
  11. ^ "Gnadenlose Vollstrecker, der (1980)".
  12. ^ "Killer Constable (1980) review".
  13. ^ Teo, Stephen (13 November 2015). Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition. ISBN 9781474400091.
  14. ^ "The Killer Constable".
  15. ^ Yau, Esther (28 April 2017). Hong Kong Neo-Noir. ISBN 9781474412681.
  16. ^ Po, Fung. "Profiles" (PDF). When the Wind was Blowing Wild: Hong Kong Cinema of the 1970s. Hong Kong Film Archive.