Scorching Sun, Fierce Winds, Wild Fire

Almost non-stop outdoor kung fu action from Taiwan marks this sprawling epic, with hapkido-trained Angela Mao--one of the first women to practice acrobatic martial arts in a Chinese film--as a ruthless masked avenger named Violet, and a teeming cast of familiar martial arts faces from the period (Cheng Yi, Tien Peng, villainous Lo Lieh, Chui Fook Sang, and high-kicking Dorian Tan, to name only a few). Set early in the 20th century (despite the surreally unexpected appearance of a prison warden smugly cruising up to a chain gang in a 1972 Cadillac), most of the film's huge roster of warlords, escaped convicts, mysterious karate masters, and assorted bandits and thieves intermittently search for the missing half of a treasure map as they whirl through the air and kick each other to pieces, with the occasional blood-curdling torture sequence thrown in for the sake of variety.