Directed by Roc (SILVER HERMIT FROM SHAOLIN TEMPLE) Tien, starring Roc Tien, Leung Ka-Yan and Lin Chie-Wen.

Commander Lin (Tien) is framed and condemned to ten years in jail so that the son of a local bigwig can take his wife. But with the help of Ruh, a big, ex-brigand monk, Lin eventually avenges himself against the wrongdoers, though this will require a showdown in a cellar full of bizarre adversaries.

Also known as THE LEGEND OF ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS, this Taiwanese production, inspired by the Water Margin novel ‘All Men Are Brothers’, offers us the chance to see a prison assassination attempt, an aggressive style of massage, a knife in the groin moment played for laughs and a farcical bedroom scene interspersed amongst the usual martial arts antics. 

But this film really becomes interesting and sticks in the memory once it reaches the finale, set in a large cellar…

Here we see a confrontation with a fighter in a wheelchair, who only pretends to be disabled and is armed with a razor-sharp fan and metal hoops. A crossdressing antagonist is next, skilled at hurling metal spikes, but he dies after big monk Ruh shoves a pole where the sun don’t shine. A hopping, curly-haired dead dude, who picks at the rotting flesh on his face, enters the fray to combat the monk now, flicking maggots into Ruh’s mouth! Our monk hero is badly wounded, but Commander Lin arrives to battle the ghoul, and then the fourth fighter joins the fight. Called Never Drunk, this dude sleeps in a barrel of alcohol and seems capable of breathing beneath the booze. Never Drunk leaps from the barrel, takes on Lin and, of course, he does so in a drunken martial arts style.  

Okay, so this ongoing cellar skirmish seems pretty offbeat, but circumstances suddenly ratchet up to batshit crazy levels when the dead ghoul’s belly begins to distend… and a red, raw-skinned, phallic critter bursts from it!

The slimy beastie, with its snapping jaws, tiny forelimbs and snake-like tail, is like some alien monster that has strayed into this kung fu actioner from a sci-fi horror flick! If the animated pork sausage mascot from the Peperami television ads and the chestburster from ALIEN (1979) got together and had a lovechild… it would resemble this slimy penis-tadpole! It can talk, too!

The scumbag bad guy, who framed Lin at the start of the story, finally gets what’s coming to him when the serpentine-penile-puppet creature bites off his dick! Classy!