Some of the top name stars in Chinese movies, like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, came from Cantonese opera. This Peking opera (which is the same as Western Ballet) movie is about The Small Swords Society, a political and military organization active in Shanghai amid the Taiping Rebellion. It is a very good example of the movements and skills in Chinese opera which inspired the action in the martial arts films of the sixties, seventies and eighties.