My Rebellious Son
(1982)
aka:
Raging Tiger
Chinese Title:
小子有種
Translation:
You Have Guts, Kid!
Starring:
Alexander Fu Sheng, Ku Feng, Tang Ching, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei,
Cecilia Wong Hang-Sau, Ai Fei, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Tin Ching,
Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Yuen Wah, Ng Hong-Sang, Wong Wai-Tong, Lee
Fat-Yuen, To Wai-Wo, Kong Chuen
Director:
Sun Chung
Action Director:
Tong Gai, Huang Pei-Chih
My Rebellious Son was
directed by Sun Chung, the man behind one of the all-time classics:
The Avenging Eagle.
He has a couple of other important films under his belt, like The
Deadly Breaking Sword and To
Kill a Mastermind. Unlike Chang Cheh
and Lau Kar-Leung (and Chor Yuen after 1976), Sun Chung never allowed
himself to be completely pigeon-holed into making just kung fu and/or
wuxia films.
When he did kung fu, he did it well…quite well…extremely well at
times. But he also dabbled in true crime (Homicides– The Criminals, Part II); erotica
(Dreams of Eroticism);
and horror (Revenge of the Corpse).
Heck, his other 1982 film, Human
Lanterns was a mixture of horror and
wuxia. My
Rebellious Son ended up being his
penultimate Shaw Brothers film, with him coming back to the studio
for the low-budget follow-up to his own The
Kung-Fu Instructor: The
Master Strikes Back.
This movie revolves around a
father-son pair of bone-setters (or physicians, for all practical
purposes): Chang Tak-Tai (Ku Feng, of Dynamo
and Bruce and the Iron Finger)
and Chang Siu-Tai (Alexander Fu Sheng, of Heroes
Two and Five
Shaolin Masters). The art of
bone-setting has long been a tradition of the Chang family and the
general cycle is for dad to practice until he reaches old age, and
then retire and enjoy life while his son takes up the mantle. The
problem is that Tak-Tai has reached old age (he was 52 here, but he
was a convincing old man 11 years prior, to be honest) and is still a
spry, energetic man. That means that he is still running the family
clinic while his son is still just an assistant.
Tak-Tai is also a very
demanding man, constantly brow-beating his son for every little
transgression. Even when Siu-Tai is late because he’s helping a
Westernized Chinese girl, Judy Shum (Cecelia Wong, of Shaolin Mantis and Ol’
Dirty & the Bastard), his dad’s
reaction is to berate him. So, there Siu-Tai loves and respects his
dad, but often wants to put his dad into compromising situations in
order to prove that he has what it takes.
For example, those dastardly
foreigners and their Westernized Chinese sycophants have decided to
prove to the locals that Western boxing, wrestling, and fencing is
superior to Chinese kung fu. They manipulate the school run by Master
Jiang (Walter Tso, of My Young Auntie)
into participating in an exhibition match with a big bruiser (Dragon
Force’s Randy Channell). Siu-Tai
gives dad an extra dose of anesthetic in his tea in order to make his
dad pass out and step in, accepting the duel on behalf of the Jiang
school.
The main conflict involves
the foreigners wanting to steal a gold statute of the Goddess of
Mercy from the local temple to give to one of the rich Englishman.
The Englishman is supported by local Western Athletics Gym, run by
the rich official/brown noser, Mr. Tang (Tang Ching, of Wrath
of the Sword and The
Bloody Fight). His son, Robert (Johnny
Wang Lung-Wei, of Martial Club);
Robert’s friend (Lam Fai-Wong), and the archetypical interpreter,
Mr. Chun (Tin Chung), act as the enforcers for Chairman Tang and they
are determined to steal the statue. But Master Chang is part of the
“Buddha Protection Squad” and is always around to stand up for
the villagers’ rights to worship the statue.
Robert and Mr. Chun decide
to bring in a bunch of Japanese kendo masters, led by Yamaguchi
(Michael Chan, playing a Japanese fighter like he did that same year
in Five Element Ninjas).
When Chang Siu-Tai tries to steal the statue himself in an effort to
embarrass his dad and take his place, the Japanese fighters (dressed
as ninjas) catch this and end up stealing it themselves. Will the
Chang duo be able to recover the statue before it goes the way of so
many other artifacts that fell into the hands of the British?
I found My
Rebellious Son to be a fascinating
movie. I had watched My Young Auntie
just a week earlier and this film often
feels like a gender inversion of that movie. Instead of the bumpkin
girl and the Western-educated boy her age getting into hijinks, one
of the subplots involves Judy Shum falling for Chang Siu-Tai after he
gives her medical attention when she falls from a horse. The thing
is, her Western ways are a mystery to him, so her actively seeking
him out is
practically an affront to his more traditional view of courtship. It
does culminate in a kung fu dance sequence, made a year before a
similar one was staged in The Champions
and 14 years before Wu Jing mixed wushu
and the Tango in Tai Chi II.
But more than that, this
film completely felt like a partial sequel to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master. Moreso, it feels like an
initial script for Drunken Master II,
which came out 12 years later. Knowing that both Wong Kei-Ying and
Wong Fei-Hung were herbalists/healers, it’s hard not
to see that in Chang father-son duo.
And you see the seemingly impossible task of the son trying to please
his father, but his happy-go-lucky personality getting in the way at
every turn. Add to that an external conflict of an Englishman trying
to steal cultural artifacts—specifically a golden statue here—with
the help of Western-educated and dressed Chinese toadies and it feels
extremely similar
to DM2. To
be perfectly honest, I now consider My
Rebellious Son to be Drunken
Master Version 0.1. It would make for a
fascinating experience to watch Drunken Master; this film; and then Drunken Master II in rapid succession.
The action scenes were
staged by Tong Gai and his brother, Huang Pei-Chih. Those two had
worked extensively with Sun Chung, especially once Sun had started
focusing on martial arts movies in the second half of the 1970s. The
fights are pretty good. The fight between Fu Sheng and Randy Channell
is a nice mix of kung fu and boxing, not too dissimilar from the
fights in Jet Li’s Born to Defence and
Ip Man 2.
There is a real good fight halfway through when a bunch of thugs
attack the two Chang’s at their shop: kung fu, weapons (including
the three-section staff), and zaniness is on display during this
lengthy sequence. That is topped by prolonged fight between Fu Sheng
and the Japanese masters (who include Yuen Wah), who ambush him with
their katana blades.
There is some great choreography in this scene.
The finale is a bit of a
disappointment, although it feels like the inspiration for the
bookending sequences of Jet Li’s Fearless.
Fu Sheng must face with the foreign
fighters in a succession of fights. It starts with Wang Lung-Wei’s
Robert, using a more modern kickboxing style (which would soon become
the style of the time). It moves onto John Ladalski (Inheritor
of Kung Fu and Bloodfight),
which fight is played for laughs. The next fight is with the Western
fencer (Mimmo Gasbarri, of Ninja in USA
and The Super Ninja) has Fu Sheng matching him
with the jian,
or two-edged straight sword. That
is very much a Fearless thing.
The same goes for the final fight, which pits Fu Sheng against the
sword-wielding Yamaguchi, which also feels like Fearless.
I really liked the choreography in these sequences (except for the
John Ladalski segment), but since this set piece starts 10 minutes
before the film is to end, each individual fight feels very short by
genre standards.
I wouldn’t say My
Rebellious Son is a great
movie, but it feels like an inspiration
for so many movies that came later—Drunken Master II; Fearless; Tai Chi 2; etc—and
it does a good job
on every aspect (fight direction, characters, etc.) that is should be
watched by all fans.
