freydis-e Spoilers are all in the last paragraph.There's no real story, the acting isn't great (and not helped by rubbish dubbing as I didn't have a subtitle option). Most of the fighting takes place in the same teahouse-setting and, while the combatants, particularly Chia Ling (aka Judy Lee) are more than competent, it's rather monotonous – in one instance fifteen solid minutes of killing people with fists, feet and knives, interrupted only by occasionally running up and down stairs. The bad guys have the usual super-tough fighter, who could have been used in a one-on-one with Ling to add variety, but he just gets wiped out in general mayhem like all the faceless extras.My experience of this wasn't helped by having a really useless DVD (by Vengeance Video). I mentioned having no subtitle option. I also got the feeling (unless it was really badly shot) that the picture had been cropped. In closeup, the tops of people's heads were usually out of shot and in some cases half their heads were missing off the side of the screen. In the fight scenes this sometimes made it impossible to see what was happening. Also dim and blurry in places and the colour was awful.I guess kf purists should like this – some of the reviewers here loved it. There's no silly wirework and no clever ideas getting in the way – basically just a strong, fast, precise and highly skilled woman beating up lots and lots and lots of guys in a fairly convincing way. Apparently it's a classic, so worth a watch for any kf fan who hasn't seen it. If you're not one, stay away, especially from this poorly presented DVD.Spoilers follow, not like there's really a plot to spoil. OK, kf movies are about kf not acting or story lines but this story was a bit too nonexistent for me. Ling shows up in town, surprise, surprise, to avenge her brother. At first she acts all anti-hero, Man-with-no-name, wandering about ignoring various mayhem going on around her and making no effort to help various innocents getting victimised. When a gang of bullies force her into action, she destroys them off-screen in about five seconds. After placing a ridiculously conservative order at the coffin-shop (she really should be on commission from the coffin-maker) she heads off after the hordes of bad guys and never really lets up until every one of them is dead. There is another guy early on doing some innocent-victim-helping as well as some obscure stuff involving a casino. He happens across Ling's first mega-bustup with a few hundred bad guys, tries to help, is basically told to keep out of her way, then gets himself injured so she has to break off killing people to rescue him. As soon as she leaves him alone (to talk to some unknown guy for no apparent reason) the bad guys catch up and kill him, leaving the way clear for a climactic battle which seems to take up half the film. There's your plot. Oh, yes, I forgot the western guy with a gun. Funny how after Ling kills him (about five seconds after she first notices him, like everyone else) no-one else is capable of picking up the gun and pulling the trigger.

haildevilman Judy Lee (yeah right) takes a feminist notion to Bruce Lee's opus, and to be honest, does an admirable job.The fight scenes seemed to be filmed at a slightly faster speed to add more intensity to them. It also gave it a (deliberate?) dose of humor. Whether that helps is for the individual to judge.Clan vs. Clan as it always is. With Ms. Lee playing the trump card. Of course innocents die, and revenge is a theme no one can seem to escape. This is one of those films that has people thinking that EVERYONE in Asia has a black belt in something.And of course you had your European (usually Russian) hired gun. The one that gets the sadistic death.Judy Lee did OK. My one gripe was how come she wasn't wearing the sexy outfit (Gi with miniskirt) that was on the vidbox I saw? Oh well.

Zombified_660 Queen Boxer has some great fight sequences, a cool lead character and an enjoyable storyline. It's far better paced than a lot of 70s Kung-Fu movies, and keeps the movie brisk and entertaining with regular fights of increasing complexity, and a good plot about a young female Kung-Fu master out for revenge and a young man trying to better the lot for those around him by taking his town back from the local mobsters (who also killed the girl's brother).As 70s genre Kung-Fu goes, Queen Boxer is pretty good. It isn't as good as my personal favourite Fatal Flying Guillotine, but the fights are impressive and satisfyingly brutal, especially the final fight which must have been an influence on Kill Bill's climactic Crazy 88 fight. It even has some of that sequence's gonzo gore make-up.Still, something annoying kept stopping me from ever fully enjoying it. I don't know if it's just an issue with the version I bought, but 34 years on Queen Boxer is not in good shape. It's either a case of no good version being available (i.e. A direct video transfer from a bad copy) or there's a serious problem with the editing, but almost every other shot is off centre, with the lead combatant in a fight or the main speaker in a shot frustratingly half in and out of shot. For some unknown reason, the entire movie was out of focus, certain shots didn't stay still in the same point of focus and popped suddenly off centre as if something had happened to the film stock and shots constantly centred on tiny unimportant parts of the action, almost as if the film had either slipped or been re-edited by overzealous and under-skilled censors. My advice on this matter is that A: Queen Boxer is good enough that I got past this eventually and enjoyed it despite the distraction, and B: Maybe try a different copy to the UK Vengeance Video version I got hold of, as it could be a different print.So, while ultimately satisfying, the current version of Queen Boxer is unfortunately badly put together, most likely edited together from several aged prints of the original reel. It's a shame, because it makes an otherwise enjoyable Kung-Fu flick deeply frustrating to watch.

Brian Camp QUEEN BOXER (1972, aka THE AVENGER) is the film that introduced fighting femme Judy Lee (aka Chia Ling) to a worldwide audience. It's a simple low-budget tale that's as much crime drama as kung fu movie as it chronicles the clash of two lone kung fu fighters against a powerful crime boss in early 20th century Shanghai. One of the two is Fan Kao To (Yeung Kwan), an unemployed laborer who seeks to rally the working people of Shanghai, in a rare display of kung fu social consciousness, to gain control over their conditions. The other fighter is a mysterious woman who shows up in Shanghai looking for crime boss Pai Lai Lee. Her mission has some connection, eventually revealed, to the recently deceased gangster Ma Yung Chen whose story, incidentally, was told earlier the same year in the Shaw Bros. rise-and-fall gangster kung fu classic, BOXER FROM SHANTUNG (1972), which starred Chen Kuan Tai. Ma's demise (which took nearly 20 minutes in SHANTUNG) is recreated--in condensed form--in a pre-credits sequence in QUEEN BOXER.Fan and Judy's character team up for one rousing fight midway through the film in a teahouse in which the action takes up two whole floors with each of the two heroes taking on dozens of Pai's henchmen, including `Michael,' a white guy with a gun. The final fight--10 minutes long--features Judy solo as she takes on Pai's gang in Pai's rather cramped villa. All of Pai's heavy hitters are on deck and Judy lunges at them with utmost ferocity. She kicks with the best of them, slashes with dual knives and swirls around with strength, vigor and balance. She leaps off balconies, rolls over tables and along surfaces and then kicks upward to send combatants flying backwards. She handles multiple opponents with dexterity and force. She is fighting fury incarnate and such a cinematic phenomenon that she belongs in a class with Angela Mao as the two top fighting femmes in Hong Kong cinema. This is the real thing, in contrast with Zhang Ziyi's overly genteel wire-and-effects-assisted restaurant brawl in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000).The film has a gritty, dark, grainy look, shot on sets and actual city streets that look pretty rundown. It's similar in style to Shaw Bros.' early 1970s crime-themed kung fu films VENGEANCE, DUEL OF THE IRON FIST and the aforementioned BOXER FROM SHANTUNG (all reviewed on this site).