The Knight Of Knights is a 1966 Shaw Brothers wuxia Martial Arts Movie starring Kiu Chong (in his sole leading role for the Shaws) and Lily Ho (an early role where Ho is a Damsel in Distress, before she moved on to more action-oriented performances).
The Zhao Qing Monastery, appearing to be a sacred temple ground for worship, actually runs a sinister kidnapping and human trafficking syndicate. When a team of six heroic warriors tries to uncover the truth, they end up falling to the various traps and ambushes; and it's up to the eldest sworn brother of the warriors, the Knight of Knights, Wen Su-Chen (Chong) to infiltrate the monastery, tear their operations apart, and avenge his siblings.
The Troper of Tropes:
- Action Prologue: The opening infiltration by Wen Su-Chen's younger brothers, in an attempt to investigate the Zhao Qing Monastery and rescue the kidnapped women. They end up fighting their way through legions and legions of corrupt monks before falling into various traps, with all but one of them dying horribly (and then said survivor succumbs to an arrow in the back shortly after reuniting with Su-Chen).
- All Monks Know Kung-Fu: The villainous monks of the Zhao Qing Monastery are capable fighters, putting up quite a fight against Su-Chen and his brothers.
- Attempted Rape: After abducting a carpenter's family, namely his wife and sister, two of the monks quickly drags the two women to separate chambers, intending to have their way with the women... but Wen Su-Chen interrupts their attempt and slices the monks before things could get ugly.
- Band of Brothels: As it turns out, the Zhao Qing Monastery are working with a chain of brothels in the capital city, supplying them with whores by drugging innocent young women to be sold off.
- Big Bad: Abbot Kung Ming is the leader of the corrupt monks and runs the Zhao Qing Monastery as a human trafficking operation, ordering for young women to be abducted and forced into prostitution as well as kidnapping Inspector Lin's daughter for an expensive ransom.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: The film climaxes with the Imperial army, alerted by Governor Wang, attacking the Zhao Qing Monastery and battling their legion of corrupt monks, with tons of extras on both sides fighting each other.
- Big Damn Heroes: Wen Su-Chen have more than one moment like this. Such as interrupting the attempt on Governor Wang's life by slicing up the assassins sent by the Zhao Qing Monastery, rescuing the carpenter and his family, and killing the brothel headmistress freeing the abducted women.
- Booby Trap: The interiors of the Zhao Qing Monastery are filled with traps, in the dungeons where they have several kidnapped women imprisoned. In the botched opening rescue scene, many of Su-Chen's sworn brothers ends up falling to the traps, such as brother Li who gets dropped in a flaming pit and another who gets impaled by a spear-trap.
- The Cavalry: In the film's finale, Governor Wang managed to convince the Imperial Capital to send their army to investigate the activities of the Zhao Qing Monastery. Just in time, too, as Su-Chen is in the process of breaking out from the Monastery's dungeons and is fighting off legions of enemies.
- Damsel in Distress : Governor Lin's beautiful daughter, Lin Hong-yu, is among the many young ladies abducted by the Zhao Qing Monastery. Wen Su-Chen saves her right before she gets carted off to be sold by a group of corrupt monks, and that quickly turns into Rescue Romance for both of them.
- Furo Scene: Shortly after Wen Su-Chen rescued Governor Lin's daughter, Lin Hong-yu, she had a scene in an impromptu tub... right beside a dozen dead enemies slain by Wen Su-Chen.
- High-Pressure Blood: Quite a bit, especially considering this is one of the Shaws' earlier films. Notably when Wen Su-Chen the hero runs his sword through Abbott Kung Ming's side, resulting in a fine spray of blood into the ceiling.
- Human Traffickers: The villainous monks of the Zhao Qing Monastery indulges in kidnapping young women to be sold off to brothels.
- In a Single Bound: It's a wuxia, so that is expected. In the opening scene Wen's brothers managed to infiltrate the Zhao Qing Monastery by leaping over it's walls and scaling it's fences, and jumps vertically several meters into the air while in the dungeon. Wen Su-Chen himself defies gravity throughout several fight scenes against the monks.
- Invincible Hero: Wen Su-Chen is borderline invincible and indestructible, with the amount of times he's imperiled being countable on one hand. Falling into the flaming trap? He just leaps out after struggling for five seconds.
- The Lancer: The Lancer(s), given that Wen Su-Chen have two other comrades, his biological younger brothers Wen Lung and Wen Hu, partaking in investigating the monastery's activities. Wen Lung plays a bigger role among the two.
- Man on Fire: One of Su-Chen's brothers, Li, gets dropped by the villainous monks in a flaming pit in the opening scene. In the final breakout, the monks tried using this same trap on the hero Su-Chen, but Su-Chen avoids the trap which ends up roasting an unfortunate monk.
- Protagonist Title
- Power Fist: In the final duel, Wen Su-Chen managed to disarm Abbot Kung Ming. But it turns out the villainous Abbot can concentrate his qi into his palms, and strike with his bare hands with enough force to shatter concrete.
- Sacrificial Lion: Right before the climax, Su-Chen's first brother, Wen Lung, ends up being killed by the monks in a failed rescue attempt.
- Sword Fight: Loads and loads of it.
- A Taste of the Lash: The innocent carpenter is subjected to being whipped by the corrupt monks after being tricked into entering the monastery's dungeons. His wife and sister are forced into becoming prostitutes by the evil monks in exchange for the carpenter's freedom, but before things could get any worse, Wen Su-Chen arrives just in time, killing the villains and rescues all of them.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Wen Su-Chen's six younger blood brothers who attempts to infiltrate the Zhao Qing Monastery at the start of the film, only to fall to the many traps in the monastery's dungeons or get killed by the monks. The second brother managed to escape as an Almost Dead Guy, and warn Wen Su-Chen before he succumbs.
