First of all, I just want to say that Shaw Brothers Studio, founded by brothers Run Run Shaw and Run Me Shaw, is awesome. I was lucky enough to catch Vengeance!, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan at the Film Festival a few years ago and they were some of the coolest movies I have ever seen. Ever. In my life.
I was super-excited when I saw that five double features labeled as "Shaw Legends" were on Netflix even if their release date was "unknown". After about a year of sitting in my "Saved" section release dates were finally assigned and I did a little more research. I discovered that these films were not actually produced by the Shaw Brothers but were only films that featured actors who became "legendary" by working with the Shaw Brothers. That's sort of like seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian then buying a "Monty Python Legends" set containing Yellowbeard and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Basically, this was a huge let down.
The first film, Iron Fist Adventures had something to do with politics, family, revenge and, I don't know, some other crap. It was really shitty in a boring way, not shitty in a fun way like a low-budget martial arts epic should be.
I think I would have liked The Thundering Ninja, the second film a lot more if the life hadn't been drained out of me by the previous movie. It's actually a remake of The Criminal (not that you've ever heard of that) if you count taking the majority of footage from one movie and adding white guys dressed as ninjas as "remaking". The plot involved a white ninja gang trying to steal missile plans from the US Government while being pursued by the CIA. What were a group of ninjas going to do with missile plans? I couldn't tell you.
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