To Kill with Intrigue

To Kill with Intrigue is a 1977 Hong Kong and Korean martial arts drama directed by Lo Wei, who also produced it. The screenplay is by Gu Long. It centres on Cao Lei, the surviving son of a wealthy family wiped out by a band of hired killers. Before the attack he had sent his pregnant fiancée, Qian-qian, away from the family home, and he now believes she is safe in the care of a trusted friend, Chen Chun. The leader of the killers, Ting Chan Yen, spares Cao Lei and becomes drawn to him, while he turns to her to strengthen his fighting skills. He gradually learns that the friend he relied on is not what he seemed, and the two men are set on a collision course.

Jackie Chan plays Cao Lei, with Hsu Feng as Ting Chan Yen, Shin Il-ryong as Chen Chun, Yu Ling-Lung as Qian-qian, George Wang as the Master of Dragon Escort and Tung Lin as the Master's Assistant. The film was Lo Wei's seventh directorial credit in the sequence recorded here, following New Fist of Fury in 1976 and preceding Spiritual Kung Fu in 1978. It was made not long after Lo Wei had directed The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, the films that first established Jackie Chan as a lead.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 5.3 from around 1,500 votes, and on TMDB it has a rating of 5.6 from a much smaller body of 62 votes. The two audiences broadly agree: this is a minor entry in the star's early filmography, watched mainly by martial arts enthusiasts.