This whiplash-inducing ride and Quentin Tarantino favorite is a prototypical vengeance-is-mine drama. Chang stoked audience anticipation by pitting his own ascendant stars Ti Lung (later of John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow) and David Chiang against each other, as a student avenging his father’s death and the mercenary who stands in his way—with one fight set to music lifted from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

New York premiere of 2K digital restoration

In Mandarin with English subtitles