The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter may have arrived at the midpoint of Lau Kar-leung’s career, but it plays like a late-period reckoning with a genre he helped create. Possessing some of the action maestro’s finest set pieces, and steeped in spiritual exhaustion, this is kung fu’s answer to The Searchers.

Gordon Liu would don the white hair of wizened master Pai Mei in Tarantino’s Kill Bill vol. 2, but here he’s the callow apprentice studying a female fighting style to defeat the iconic villain. Directed by King Boxer’s leading man Lo Lieh, Clan of the White Lotus is a quintessential kung fu classic.

An all-time great kung fu comedy from the virtuosic Lau Kar-leung, Dirty Ho boasts singular fight scenes that combine acrobatic elegance and zany slapstick. Facing formidable foes, all played by martial arts icons, Gordon Liu and Wong Yue make for a riotous duo of cheeky master and hapless sidekick.

You can always rely on Lau Kar-leung to make good on a film title loaded with so much promise. The Shaw Brothers maestro writes, directs, and stars in this gloriously entertaining blend of wuxia and kung fu. Rolled out for the grand finale, those weapons prove as plentiful as they are legendary.