This is the first commentary of yours that I listened to, just found the site a few weeks ago, great listening!
I remember when I first saw this in the mid 90s, I'd just gotten into HK films through a John Woo season on Sky and some Jackies, so I bought a bootleg of this on VHS cos I thought it was Tony Leung Chi Wai from Bullet in the Head, and spent the whole film looking for him, totally confused.
I also used to make my own home movie kung fu films called Scottish Ninja, and I remember thinking that it would be a great idea to rip off the plot twist at the end of Island of Fire for Scottish Ninja 11, as no one would have seen this obscure film. Little did I know that the twist was basically the plot for La Femme Nikita! Whoops!