King Boxer
King Boxer (Chinese: Tiān xià dì yī quán, lit. "Number One Fist in the World"), also known as Five Fingers of Death, is a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Chung Chang-Wha (Korean: 정창화; Hanja: 鄭昌和) and starring Lo Lieh. It was produced by Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. (Chinese: 邵氏兄弟（香港）公司), the largest Hong Kong movie production studio at the time. The script was written by Chiang Yang (江陽). Made in Hong Kong, it is one of many kung fu movies with Indonesian-born actor Lo Lieh (羅烈) in the lead. He appeared in many similar martial arts film efforts from the 1960s, pre-dating the more internationally successful Bruce Lee.
| King Boxer | |||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 天下第一拳 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 天下第一拳 | ||||||||||
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| Directed by | Chung Chang-Wha | ||||||||||
| Screenplay by | Chiang Yang and Chung Chang-Wha | ||||||||||
| Produced by | Run-run Shaw | ||||||||||
| Starring | Lo Lieh Wang Ping Wang Chin-feng | ||||||||||
| Cinematography | Wang Yung-lung | ||||||||||
| Edited by |
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| Music by | Chen Yung-yu | ||||||||||
Production company | Shaw Brothers Studio | ||||||||||
| Distributed by |
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Release date | April 28, 1972 (Hong Kong) | ||||||||||
Running time | 97 minutes | ||||||||||
| Country | Hong Kong | ||||||||||
| Language | Mandarin | ||||||||||
| Box office | US$10 million (rentals) | ||||||||||
Released in the United States by Warner Bros. in March 1973 as Five Fingers of Death, the film capitalized on the success of Warner's TV series Kung Fu and was responsible for beginning the North American kung fu film craze of the 1970s with over 30 similar films being released in the U.S. in 1973 alone. Warner followed it with the first U.S.-Chinese Kung Fu co-production Enter the Dragon released later that same year which was the most successful of the chopsocky films of 1973.