the audience applauded

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

An action-packed slog

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Yuan Ying Fei (Lu Feng) laments the fact that he's a great martial artist with no worthy opponent(s) against whom to test his mettle, so he whiles away the hours dispatching UNworthy opponents. (But he's no fool: in an inspired bit of insight, he points out that firearms nullify even expert martial art(ist)s.) His weapon of choice is "The Golden Sword," the family heirloom (a kwando, according to another reviewer, a sword-tipped spear). Guan Yun (Lo Meng), of the Wu Wei Security Bureau, refuses to sell out to Yuan (who wants to expand his territory). Enter He Fei (Chiang Sheng) and friends. The trio go from restaurant to restaurant eating for a beating: all three eat a meal and then alternate taking a beating from the restaurant owners when they can't pay. Yang Zhui Feng (Kuo Chui) steps in and saves one of the trio from taking a beating by promising to make good on the bill- and then turns himself over to the owner for a beating after he himself eats! Later, Yuan intervenes when Chui and the trio are having it out at the abandoned "God of Chivalry" temple and invites them all to his palatial home. There, they're fattened up for the proverbial kill as Yuan frames Guan (painting him as an unreasonable rascal), then provokes Guan into attacking the group (and thereby verifying what Yuan has claimed). Yang inadvertently kills Guan when Yuan secretly switches Yang's bo for a bo loaded with explosives. Yuan then publicly "avenges" Guan by killing Sheng's two buddies. This leaves Sheng and Chui to set things right. In terms of story, THE MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS is as full of twists and turns as any of Chang Cheh's classics, and the action is great. The performances all around are up to par, as well. Recommended.

A year after the one - two punch of Five Deadly Venoms and Crippled Avengers, director Cheh had some pretty high marks to reach with his subsequent films. While he created some highly entertaining productions none of them ever really met the standard he set with those two films.The film concerns the plight of unemployed martial artists at the turn of the 20th century. Guns and modern transportation have essentially made the traditional security transport agency obsolete. Who needs highly trained and expensive martial artists when you can give an idiot a gun? An unhinged man who has inherited his father's businesses and wealth plus his father's "Golden Sword" skill, preys on starving, itinerant martial artists by challenging them to friendly fights. What the desperate martial artists don't know is that this guy is really fighting to the death. When the only guy in town who could possibly defeat the Golden Sword techniques refuses to sell his property to the rich guy, the rich guy concocts a plan to have our heroes, also wandering starving martial artists, kill him without their knowledge. The rich guy also covets the man's beautiful sister.One of the criticisms of Cheh's film is that they are frequently humorless affairs despite the absurdity of the martial arts. Not so here. Quite a bit of light-hearted fun despite the evil of the rich guy's plans. However once the film hits the last third much of the fun is gone as tragedy takes full control. In contrast, The Crippled Avengers managed to maintain the humor throughout the entire film (after the nasty first ten minutes). The martial arts are choreographed by several of the "Venoms" so we do get to see a lot of their excellent skills on full display but perhaps missing the expert choreography of Tang Chia who would pull it all together. The final fight is quite remarkable and goes on for a while. The "Golden Sword" is actually a kwando (a large blade at the end of a staff) which is not frequently seen in film.A strange scene in the middle of the film is quite revealing of director Cheh's predilections. The heroes are invited to stay at the rich guy's mansion. They are offered a bath before dinner. The four heroes, wrapped in towels, walk to the bath. One of them gooses the other who exclaims, "What are you doing?" Then three of them wrap their arms over each other's shoulders as they enter the bathroom. Suddenly they all run out screaming. There are women there ready to bath them! (We don't get to see the women naked). The upset heroes throw the women out, toss their towels off (off-screen) and we cut to them all together in the bath having a playful water fight! Cheh must have been having a wonderful day! Just a warning to those who like their Venoms a little more hetero.A fun film, not the best, but fun.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** As a fan of Shaw Brothers films, especially the director, Chang Cheh..it's a pretty good movie. It has the Venom Gang, comic relief and good fighting sequences. A brief synopsis on the film if I may. A business lacking escort service ran by a rich martial artist, Feng Lu(Centipede and Silver Spear fame)needs to feed his hunger for Kung Fu, traps martial artists and fights them to the death. As his business is decreasing he looks to expand and targets an escort service inhabited by a mother, daughter and son(Meng Lo: Toad, Golden Arm). As he tries to buy his business, Meng Lo is stubborn and refuses to sell the escort service. The brash and abrasive Meng Lo seeks to fight all the time but his sister and mother always calling on him to return back to the house(mommas boy). During all this, four vagabonds (Shen Chiang, Chien Sun, Philip Kwok and Li Wang)looking for food and shelter actually go to restaurants, eat their and get beaten for having no money(quite funny). Funny thing, all four vagabonds are Kung Fu expects. Anyway, Feng Lu finds out about these vagabonds and befriends the fighters to indulge in his kung fu kicks. As their provider, he bathes, feeds and shelters them. All this, the four vagabonds meet Meng Lo and develop a psuedo friendship. Meng Lo challenges all four to contests(friendly but intense-good fighting scenes). Their bond grows stronger and all this suits Feng Lu. He masterminds a plot to get them all killed by having all five turn on each other. One scene is when Meng Lo and Philip Kwok are fighting and decide to not pull any punches...so Philip(who uses a pole and Lo as always uses his bare hands)lands his pole on Meng Lo chest..Philip taps the pole and it explodes, killing Lo. To his surprise, Philip can't believe what happened and the other three vagabonds try to kill him. The pole was switched and contained explosives. They bring the dead carcass to the mother and daughter for their viewing. Feng Lu seizes the opportunity and fights with the three vagabonds...great fight scenes. Feng Lu disposes of Chien Sun and Li Wang with his famous sword by using some styles named clouds come down, cloud goes up, sun through clouds, etc..... Sheng Chiang escapes the slaughter and hooks up with Philip and both strategized a plot to kill Feng Lu. The ending is quite good, Philip and Sheng work well together as a team. Suffice to say...the good wins over evil. Works for me.

Four starving friends and their new friend are tricked by a madman into fighting each other. This movie has 3 major elements that any good kung fu movie must have: great cameraderie between the main heroes, awesome kung fu, and a great villain!