Banlieue 13 (2004)

Banlieue 13 (2004)
aka: B13; District 13; District B13

 

Starring: David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, Tony D'Amario, Dany Verissimo, Larbi Naceri, François Chattot, Nicolas Woirion, Patrick Olivier
Director: Pierre Morel
Action Director: Cyril Raffaelli

When 2004 rolled around, Hong Kong action cinema was still drifting in the doldrums, even if its influence was still being felt on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in Hollywood. Nonetheless, fans of hard-hitting, stunt-driven action were now turning their attention to Thailand, with the revelation of Tony Jaa[1] in Ong Bak the previous year. At about the same time, the French were making inroads into the martial arts action scene, first with the Luc Besson-produced, French-produced Kiss of the Dragon (2001), and then with the Corey Yuen-directed/choreographed The Transporter (2002). Banlieue 13 continued the trend, but innovated the scene by integrating the art of parkour into the martial arts sequences.

Parkour should be familiar to most of my readers by this point, especially in the 18 years following the release of Banlieue 13, which itself has seen both a sequel and a Hollywood remake, Brick Mansions. Actor/choreographer Cyril Raffaelli played a parkour-using henchman in Live Free and Die Hard (2007), while the discipline was the basis for an unforgettable action sequence in the James Bond movie Casino Royale (2006). It has since entered our vernacular: whenever my daughter plays any game that requires the player to jump from ledges or multiple platforms—usually in a hurry or with a certain degree of strategy—she says that the characters are performing parkour.

French soldier Raymond Belle was the main forerunner of the discipline, who spent his nights in Vietnam (then Indochina) climbing trees and finding news ways to best the military’s obstacle courses. His son, David, was originally an athlete and a gymnast and grew disaffected with traditional sports. Upon learning of his father’s training in Vietnam, which Raymond had called parcours, David made it his mission to essentially develop it into a real discipline. Inspired by Hong Kong action movies (specifically Jackie Chan), Van Damme films, Bruce Lee, and anime, they started creating physical challenges and finding ways to run, jump, climb, roll and flip their way through them[2]. David Belle’s group called itself Yamakasi, which was also the name of a 2001 starring members of the group as cat burglars.

The movie is set in the far-flung future of 2010 (heh), where certain ghettoes in Paris, like Banlieue 13, have become so overrun with crime that they basically walled off from the rest of the city. Police stations are set up at the entry points to ensure that nobody leaves the district without their consent. This is where we meet our main character, Leïto (David Belle, who also starred in the Hollywood remake), who sort of runs an apartment complex in the district. He has come across a large quantity of cocaine belonging to crime boss Taha (Larbi Naceri, who wrote this film). Leïto is in the middle of washing the cocaine down the bathtub drain when Taha’s enforcers, led by K2 (Tony D’Amario), show up to reclaim what is theirs. K2 and his men dispatch with Leïto’s guards, mainly thanks to the latter being idiots, and storm the place. David Belle escapes with his life thanks to his awesome roof-jumping skills.

Taha is not particularly happy with his men’s failure to recover the drugs. And when Taha is not happy…people DIE! He is executing his men one by one until K2 comes up with the idea of kidnapping Leïto’s sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo), who has a normal job in this crime-ridden hellhole as a grocer. Lola is particularly feisty, and Taha doesn’t have much time to do anything with her before Leïto literally drops in on him and both frees his sister and makes a citizen’s arrest on Taha. Unfortunately, the police captain in charge of the District 13 precinct is retiring the next day. To make his transition easier, he locks up Leïto and lets Taha go with Lola in hand. Leïto responds by pulling the man’s head through the bars and breaking his neck, thus winning him a one-way ticket to prison.

Six months later, undercover police officer Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli, who fought Jet Li at the climax of Kiss of the Dragon) receives the mission to infiltrate District 13. Apparently, an armored truck was stolen and taken into Taha’s custody. If the truck had just been carrying money, that would be one thing. But this particular truck’s cargo was a friggin neutron bomb. And apparently there is a mechanism on the bomb that would arm the bomb the moment anyone opened the case…which Taha did. So now Damien has 23 hours to storm the most dangerous district in Paris, find the bomb (wherever it may be hidden), and disarm it. Sounds like a tall order, right? That’s where Leïto comes in. Damien will need someone who knows the district like the back of his hand, and who better to help him bring down Taha than the guy who turned kidnapped his sister and turned her into a junkie.

There is quite a bit of entertainment to be derived from watching Cyrill Raffaelli and David Belle in action. It almost feels like Jackie Chan had undergone complete organism-scale cell division and produced two Frenchmen. David Belle would represent the running, jumping and general stuntwork portion of Chan, while Raffaelli would be the martial arts/fighting portion (although he’s no slouch in the acrobatics department, either). We’re only a few minutes into the film when Belle is given his first action sequence, which has him running, jumping, climbing, flipping, diving, rolling, and God-knows-what-else’ing his way through an apartment complex and is adjoining buildings. The man’s athleticism brings to mind some of Jackie Chan’s better stunt-driven moments, like Project A 2. He certainly is on par with the work Tony Jaa was doing at the same time.

On the other hand, Raffaelli gets a handful of opportunities to show off his fighting skills. Most notable is his introductory scene, where he fights off a racketeer’s men in an underground casino, using all sorts of acrobatic kicks, flips, and guns as well. The now-defunct Wasted Life website ranked this sequence #60 of the 100 best fight scenes of all time. Wrote John Richards[3]:

“This scene towers above any of the action in the rest of the film (which is all still fantastic by the way). As Damian (Cyril Raffaelli) singlehandedly takes down a Casino full of gun-wielding gangsters we get an awesome display of martial arts thats very nearly a match for 'Ong Bak' in terms of brutality and the agility of its main protagonist. Mixed in is a crazy barrage of gunplay sequences as attackers continually seem to come out of nowhere. Coolest bit is where Cyril slides under a gaming table while simultaneously shooting upwards to take out the villain stood over him.”

I would say that the main problem of this movie is that none of the action ever quite matches up to those introductory set pieces. There are a number of car chases, foot chases, and shorter fights—including a disappointing one against a mountain-of-flesh appropriately named Yeti (Unleashed’s Jeff Rudom)—but nothing on the level of the carnage we see in the first act. Generally speaking, the final fight should be the hardest or most brutal, even if it’s not the most creative or elaborate. We do get a brief scuffle between Belle and Raffaelli, but I was expecting a little more.

That said, the rest of the movie is fine. The story plays like Escape from New York filtered through the eyes of an 80s Hong Kong action movie, which is a fine way to structure you movie. The main characters are likable and seem to have a good rapport with each other. I liked Lola’s no-nonsense female character, although after her great introduction, she’s mainly a strung-out heroin addict with minimal dialog. I like that she does try to stop the missile in her own way, though. It’s not a total loss, but I think more could have been done with her character. The villains are appropriately quirky and fun to watch, and Taha gets dispatched in a way that I honestly did not see coming. Nonetheless, the action on the whole is done well enough that I can see how it got both a Hollywood remake and Cyrill Raffaelli several gigs there, too.

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[1] - Jaa had already been working as a stuntman, including on Hollywood fare like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

[2] - I realize that there is a strong philosophical and mental element to Parkour, but with film being a purely visual medium, I won’t dwell on it here.

[3] - https://web.archive.org/web/20100527032745/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.richards250/100fightscenes5.htm

Rusty Blade (2022)

Rusty Blade (2022)
Chinese Title: 千里不留行
Translation: A Thousand Miles Without Leaving

Starring: Su Zhenhua, Xiao Cong, Liu Chuxuan, Wang Cheng, Yang Yunxi, Wang Zhao, Muhtar, Liang Tingwei
Director: Sun Huyi, Song Xiaobai
Action Director: n/a

I spend an inordinate amount of time watching recent Mainland kung fu movies and then writing multi-paragraph reviews talking about how much they suck. But there's always the hope that I might find a small gem, much like how I spend a lot of time watching lesser-known basher films for the same reason. So color me happy when I find one that doesn't make me want to stab someone, or turn their school signboard upside down. Rusty Blade is not the greatest wuxia film ever made, but it does its job well enough to put it head and shoulders, and maybe half a torso, above most of its contemporaries.

"Monster Sword" Lin Da-Wei (Su Zhenhua) is a bounty hunter in the employ of the Ming Dynasty, more specifically the magistrate of the northwestern town of Taiping. He eventually becomes a subordinate of the magistrate and settles down to start a family, marrying a pretty woman named Wan Yu (Liu Chuxuan) and having a daughter named Ping'er (who'll be played as a teen by Yang Yunxi). His life is not idyllic, however. Being the Ming Dynasty [1], the corrupt (or not?) magistrate prefers to pay his employees in fabric instead of actual silver. And the local merchants have stopped accepting fabric as a means of payment.

When Wan Yu gets sick, Da-Wei takes a dance with the devil to pay for treatment. He joins his former bounty hunter colleagues, led by Lu Qian (Wang Cheng?), to attack the crime boss who runs the local salt and iron smuggling operations: Jin Mantang. During their assault on Jin's household, Da-wei accidentally kills Jin's wife. Lu Qian stabs Mantang, but doesn't finish the job. After the job, Lu Qian bargains with the local eunuch to assume the post of Constable, not to mention the de facto head of the iron and salt smuggling operations. Meanwhile, Lin Da-Wei becomes the fall guy and is sent into exile for ten years. When Da-Wei finally returns, he'll have to deal with the fallout of his crimes on his family, the deception of his buddy, and finally Jin Mantang, who is not dead and has teamed up with one of Da-Wei's dueling rivals.

Rusty Blade is an interesting story about the things man does in desperation, and what happens to those around us when we sacrifice our ideals and principles, even for an arguably "good" cause. Da-Wei really just wants to live in peace with his wife and daughter, but the infamous Ming Dynasty penny pinching puts him in a rather unenviable situation. Despite his wife's pleas do things honestly, he has a momentary hiccup of principles, which have grave consequences on him and his family, not to mention others. The final fight is not one of redemption, but of owning up to your mistakes and facing the consequences. It is not cowardice to want to put down your sword and step away from the violence, but causing the violence and wanting to shy away from it is indeed hypocritical.

The acting is solid, although it's as stoic as most post-CTHD wuxia movies tend to be. Su Zhenhua puts in a good performance as Lin Da-Wei, a wise and seasoned fighter who has to pay for a momentary lapse of judgment. While usually underplaying his character, he does have some moments of explosive emotion near the end, when he has to confront Lu Qian and the latter's motives for choosing Da-Wei as the scapegoat. Liu Chuxuan also puts in a compelling performance as Lin's long-suffering, but ultimately faithful, wife. She loves her husband, even if his actions went against all of her loving counsels and put the family in a tough spot for an entire decade.

The action is refeshing in that there are no wires or CGI used. At. All. There are several fight scenes in the first half, but the film then settles down into character interactions until the last fifteen minutes, when Lin Da-Wei finally faces his destiny. Lin Da-Wei's nickname stems from the fact that his weapon looks more like a German longsword, or a claymore, than your typical red-tasseled jian. Several of the characters wield similar blades throughout the movie, too. The choreography feels like the fight directors were studying Western films about knights and German fencing manuals than your standard balletic wuxia films...you know, the stuff you'd get from Tony Ching Siu-Tung or Ma Yuk-Sing. The fights are well mounted, and may remind some of Tsui Hark's The Blade, sans the quick cuts and intrusive edits. While not on that film's level in terms of storytelling or theme deconstruction, Rusty Blade does make for a stark contrast with the big-budget CGI wuxia and xianxia movies that the PRC has been churning out as of late.

 

[1] - I once read an article of a Ming emperor who stockpiled silver and never used it, even when there were natural disasters all over the empire that required government investment in emergency supplies. Apparently, the entire stockpile rotted away (or corroded or whatever happened to silver taels when left alone too long).

U.S. Seals II (2001)

U.S. Seals II (2001)
aka: U.S. Seals 2: The Ultimate Force; Close Combat

 

Starring: Michael Worth, Marshall Teague, Damian Chapa, Karen Kim, Sophia Crawford, Kate Connor, George Chung, Andy Cheng, Hakim Alston, Dan Southworth, Mitch Gould
Director: Isaac Florentine
Action Director: Andy Cheng

 

I find it interesting that while U.S. Seals II is considered a minor classic among martial arts movie enthusiasts, nobody really remembers the first one. I don’t think very many people actually saw it, and those who did…well…Let’s take a look at an IMDB review (courtesy of Gideon40):

 

This has to be the king of bad action movies. The acting is really bad and the action scenes are repetitive and boring. What I found most irritating about this 'film' is that the navy seals don't use any tactics whatsoever-they always dispose of their enemies by simply gunning down the first enemy they see. Some parts are just over the top stupid, for instance during the part where the seals and the bad guys chase each other in armored carriers around a marketplace, a car just, out of the blue, drives from off screen, gets launched into the air and blows up for no reason. What kind of random stunt was that? That wasn't the first time either. Later on an enemy jeep goes up a crude ramp, explodes for no reason and flies into the water. Also the director has some strange fascination with objects suspended in the air that the good guys use to kill the bad guys. The first time, they use a block hanging on a crane to demolish a building with bad guys in it. The second time, they shoot a crane with another block suspended, which drops onto the enemies. The third time, they, using an innaccurate machine gun from a long distance, shoot another crane with a truck suspended below that drops about 6 meters and explodes onto the bad guys. This is just the icing of the cake, of course, because during most of the action sequences the seals are fighting literally an army of bad guys using weapons they aren't supposed to be using, while constantly exposing themselves the enemy fire. I'm going to list some of the most dumb scenes below.

 1. The good guys can run straight towards a pillbox with about 4 machinegunners firing at them, yet not get hit a single time. They hid behind a tree, throw a grenade without even looking and guess what? It flies through the slit in the pillbox and blows it up.

2. Throughout the entire movie the seals never, ever, have to reload their rifles. I estimate that they fired about 1000+ bullets, yet there isn't a single scene of them reloading, nor do they run out of ammo.

3. The seals are deadly accurate with their weapons, and the enemies couldn't hit a house even if they were inside one. Every grenade, every burst of gunfire from the seals always hits, and only one bullet the army of enemies fires actually hits a seal. I hate to say this but I nearly slept by the final battle because it had the same turnout.

4. The seals can't get killed by explosions. One scene had shells, missiles and rockets exploding all around them, and despite the fact that most of them exploded within a radius of less than 5 feet around them, not one seal got fazed or hurt. Yet their grenades explode with a tiny bang but can kill enemies several meters away.

5. The seals behave in an extremely barbaric manner. When interrogating the bad guys, they bash, punch, smash, and torture them to get answers. If I were a seal I'd be offended at the way this film portrays me.

 

And so it goes. One would assume that this first U.S. Seals films is a compilation of all the worst Hollywood action clichés presented with the utmost incompetence.

Somehow, Isaac Florentine—best known for Desert Kickboxer and Savate at this point--got his hands on the material and, for the sequel, made a straight-up martial arts film using an ingenious premise: the terrorists have set up shop on a Russian island (played by Bulgaria) contaminated by “methane-based” chemical waste, so that any spark would cause the place to explode. What a wonderful excuse for the Navy SEALs to put down their automatic weapons and engage in fisticuffs for 90 minutes!

The movie opens with our SEAL team, led by Casey (Michael Worth, of To Be the Best and Enter the Shootfighter), breaking up an arms deal. Some of Casey’s men are killed during the ensuing shootout, which is bad enough. To make things worse, his second-in-command, the psychotic Frank Ratliff (Street Fighter’s Damian Chapa), disobeys orders and puts a bullet in their target’s head, execution-style. But that is only the start of Casey’s problems.

Back on the Naval Base in Okinawa, Casey and Ratliff are getting some R&R and visiting their master’s dojo as well. One evening, the two men are at a bar when they catch their Sensei’s (Rush Hour’s George Chung) hot daughter, Nikki (Karen Kim, of The Silent Force and Killing Cupid), getting down and dirty with another sailor. Sensing she’s drunk off her ass, Ratliff offers to drive her home. Shortly afterward, Casey finds her body and discovers that Ratliff killed her after attempting to rape her. The latter gets away and disappears, and Sensei Matsumura commits hara-kiri in shame. Nikki’s twin sister, Kamiko (also Karen Kim), shuts herself off emotionally from Casey. This is the last straw: Casey retires from the armed forces and becomes a civilian.

A few years later, Ratliff resurfaces as a terrorist who kidnaps a famed nuclear physicist, Dr. Jane Burrows (Kate Connor, of Humanoid and Snake Island). He holds her hostage on an abandoned island which the Soviets had used to manufacture chemical weapons. A series of mishaps resulted in the contamination of the place with flammable, but non-toxic, gases. In other words, the entire place would go up in smoke at the first gunshot. Army officer Major Nathan Donner (Marshall Teague, of The Bad Pack and Special Forces) was responsible for Dr. Burrows, so he heads over to the Navy in order to get a SEAL team to help him lead a rescue mission. Admiral Patterson (Burnell Tucker, of Honor Bound) recommends that they get Casey out of retirement: he’d just love to settle the score with Radliff once and for all.

Given the circumstances, Casey is going to need a team who’s better with fists and melee weapons than with guns. His team consists of Born-Again convict Finley (Daniel Southworth, of Mortal Kombat: Legacy and “Power Rangers Time Force”); professional hitman Omar (Hakim Alston, of Mortal Kombat); Harper (Stuntman Mitch Gould, of Ultraviolet and The Rundown); and Byrd (Plamen Zahov, of Shark Zone and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon). Finally, Kamiko decides to put her feelings for Casey aside and join the party, her katana and military-grade crop top in hand.

Of course, their presence on the island will eventually be discovered and our heroes will have to contend with an army of machete-wielding Eurotrash henchmen, plus martial arts heavy-hitters Radliff; his British girlfriend, Sophia (Sophia Crawford, of Angel Terminators 2 and Escape from Brothel); and Artie (Andy Cheng). Let the games begin!

I’m curious as to how it would play out in real life if American Special Forces had to infiltrate a locale in which the use of firearms was downright impossible. U.S. Seals II uses movie logic, so the retired guy is able to take up his former position immediately and hire whomever he wants (i.e. a convict, a known hitman, a civilian, etc.) to join him on the mission. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t play out that way, although I wonder if there would be some sort of screening for the SEALs (and Rangers and Green Berets and whatever) were the best at personal combat for the mission.

The film is mainly an excuse for a series of Hong Kong-inspired martial arts sequences choreographed by Andy Cheng, a former member of Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association. Cheng worked with Chan on films like Mr. Nice Guy; Who Am I?; the first two Rush Hour movies; Shanghai Noon; and The Tuxedo. While not all of those represent Chan’s best work, one can imagine that someone would need a lot of martial talent to work for Jackie in the first place. Cheng has since gone on to become a big Hollywood fight choreographer, working on popular films like Twilight; The Rundown starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; Olympus Has Fallen; and most recently, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. As of this moment (March 2023), Cheng is set to choreograph the action scenes in the live-action adaptation of the Saint Seiya anime.

After a few short dust-ups here and there, the action really begins in earnest at the halfway point, when our heroes are ambushed by an army of blade-brandishing Bulgarian stuntmen. You would assume that a group brawl choreographed by a Jackie Chan team member, whose work has featured many of the best one-on-many fights of all time, would be nothing less than stellar. And you would be right. Our heroes have to punch, kick, hack and slash their way through dozens of sword-swinging Slavs, which they do in style. Knives, staves, swords and even scarves get used over the course of this sequence. This is probably the best few-vs-many fight I’ve seen in a Western movie since Jeff Falcon took on the Russian army in Six-String Samurai (or any randomly-selected fight from Drive). And this is no short Hollywood kerfuffle. It goes on for a good seven minutes or so.

The finale is a pair of parallel sword fights: Michael Worth takes on Damian Chapa, while Karen Kim engages Sophia Crawford in the best female katana duel since Cynthia Khan threw down with Kim Maree Penn in In the Line of Duty V—notice how both films have a female Asian protagonist against an evil blonde…hmm. Oh, and just ignore the fact that steel banging on steel might produce a spark that would ignite the island; Isaac Florentine and company sure did. Worth and Chapa also break out the acrobatic swordplay, although they eventually disarm each other and go for fisticuffs, too. There are some nice spin kicks and wire-assisted falls on display, and the choreography is just as good, if not a smidge better, than what The Matrix had given us two years before. It certainly beats out the Hong Kong flavor of contemporaries like Charlie’s Angels and Romeo Must Die.

As a mindless action film with no basis in reality, U.S. Seals II largely succeeds. My only real beef with the film has to do with the sound effects. Everything the characters do, even just turning their head, is punctuated with the exaggerated Whoosh effect you hear in old school chopsockey films. Every. Single. Movement. It eventually drags the movie into self-parody. Think of the kung fu parody sequence in Wayne’s World 2 and multiply that by twenty. That’s the level of sound effect exaggeration you’re getting here. If you can get past that (plus some dodging acting from some of the supporting actors and Hollywood action logic), you’ll get one of the better examples of Hong Kong-style action in a post-Matrix film.

The Magnificent Butcher (1979)

The Magnificent Butcher (1979)
Chinese Title: 林世榮
English Translation: Lam Sai-Wing

 

Starring: Sammo Hung, Kwan Tak-Hing, Lee Hoi-San, Fan Mei-Shang, Chiang Kam, Yuen Biao, Wei Pai, Fung Hak-On
Director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Action Directores: Yuen Woo-Ping, Sammo Hung

In the wake of the monumental success of both Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and The Drunken Master, dozens and dozens of copycats and rip-offs crawled greedily from the woodwork. Most of them were generic kung fu comedies that simply repeated those films’ plot structure but replaced the featured style to set their film apart from the rest. Some studios were able to hire Simon Yuen to play an old master, giving their film an extra “Me Too!” quality. In the case of Yuen Woo-Ping, who had directed and choreographed those films, his follow-ups the following year expanded upon the Wong Fei-Hung mythos that was the centerpiece of The Drunken Master.

The first of those was Dance of the Drunken Mantis, which continued the story of Beggar So/Sam Seed. The second was The Magnificent Butcher, which focuses on the hijinks of one of Wong Fei-Hung’s students, Lam Sai-Wing. Produced by Golden Harvest and starring Sammo Hung, who had been working as a supporting actor and fight choreographer with the studio since 1971. This was Yuen’s first directorial effort with a major studio—he had previously done action direction on a handful of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers movies.  Both Sammo and Yuen brought in their respective teams and favorite character actors for what turned out to be one of the better post-DM kung fu comedies out there.

The general gist of the Lam Sai-Wing character is that he’s a talented martial artist, and his good intentions tend to be eclipsed by his impulsive nature and inability to let someone finish a sentence once he thinks he knows what’s going on. This gets him in trouble early on, after beating up some random guy over a disagreement with his chess partner. The poor sap happens to be the student of one of the local kung fu teachers, Master Kao (Lee Hoi-San, who plays the villain in other Sammo movies like Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog and Incredible Kung Fu Master). Master Kao takes afront to this, and goes to Po Chi Lam, Wong Fei-Hung’s clinic and kung fu school, looking to settle the score.

So now Butcher Wing is on Kao’s blacklist, and his master (played by Kwan Tak-Hing, who had played Wong Fei-Hung all throughout the late 40s, 50s and 60s, who had retired the role after his 1974 film The Skyhawk) isn’t very happy either. Kao himself has problems with his own, in the form of his wastrel son, Kao Tai-Hoi (Fung Hak-On, who had played the villain in other Sammo movies, like Warriors Two). Tai-Hoi is not only a layabout and a bully, but he’s a blossoming rapist, too. He initially sets his sights on his father’s goddaughter, but then sets her aside after laying eyes on Yuet-Mei (Tong Ching), the new bride of Butcher Wing’s estranged brother, Lam Sai-Kwong (Chiang Kam).

Unfortunately, Ah Wing doesn’t know that his brother has come to town. So, when Kao Tai-Hoi kidnaps Yuet-Mei and invokes Lam Sai-Kwong’s wrath, Wing immediately helps the former when the latter is trying to club him to death in a lonely alley. Lam Sai-Wing is a better fighter than his brother—whom he doesn’t know is his brother—and the resulting whalloping that Sai-Kwong receives is enough to drive him toward suicide. Thankfully, Sai-Kwong is saved by the intervention of the local drunken master (Fan Mei-Sheng, of Hitman in the Hand of Buddha and, believe it or not, Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon). A few fights later, Yuet-Mei is saved and Kao Hai-Toi’s lecherous designs are exposed. But some more impulsive behavior on the part of Lam Sai-Wing puts other characters in harm’s way and Lam on a collision course with Master Kao.

Structurally, this film follows most of the same beats as its predecessors, although it really takes its sweet time to get where it’s going. Unlike The DrunkenMaster, which had four fights in the first 12 minutes, this one takes ten minutes just to get to the first real scuffle, and after that, it’s another 15 minutes before we get another one. Most of the first and second acts are focused on establishing the characters and building up the conflict between the protagonists and the young Kao Tai-Hoi. The action doesn’t explode until well past the hour mark, in such a way that by the time we get to the obligatory training sequences, they are just that: an obligation imposed by the example set forth in Yuen Woo-Ping’s previous films. The quality of the action and Sammo’s inherent likability help lift this above more forgettable fare, like Story of the Drunken Master and Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards.

The action is simply phenomenal. One good thing that both Yuen Woo-Ping and Sammo Hung do here is make sure that each act of the story has one great defining set piece. In the first act, we have a clever calligraphy duel between Kwan Tak-Hing (as Wong Fei-Hung) and Lee Hoi-San (as Master Kao). By this point, Kwan was already 74 years old and had come out of retirement for this particular film (he would show up in two more films as Wong Fei-Hung over the next two years). The idea is that Wong is trying to practice his calligraphy, while Master Kao is trying to disrupt his work, either by painting on his paper, or by destroying the table. The two men exchange blows, often disguised as ordinary movements or calligraphy strokes. It’s a very clever fight and one of the great “object-fu” sequences out there.

The second act is punctuated by a duel involving two of Kao’s men, played by Lam Ching-Ying (Mr. Vampire and The Prodigal Son) and Yuen Miu, one of the lesser-known of the Seven Fortunes. Wei Pai, best known as the “Snake Venom,” squares off with Yuen Miu, who plays a master of the monkey pole technique. Better than that is Yuen Biao’s scuffle with Lam Ching-Ying. Initially Yuen Biao fights using the handwork-heavy choy li fut style, while Lam Ching-Ying uses a fan. When that proves to be too much for Biao, he starts using his legs, in an awesome display of bootwork and agility. Backed into a corner, Lam Ching-Ying reveals a secret weapon: “Knives in the cuffs.” But Biao’s flexibility and effortless high kicks keep Lam at bay.

The film climaxes with a lengthy fight between Sammo Hung and Lee Hoi-Sang. The former uses the Five Animals Form—said animals being the panther, snake, dragon, crane and tiger—which is an integral part of the Hung Gar style that the real Lam Sai-Wing practiced. Lee Hoi-Sang uses a five-element style, not to mention the “Cosmic Crimson Palm,” a variation of the infamous Jiankang, or King Kong, Palm technique. During the fight, Fan Mei-Shang sits on the sidelines, telling Lam Sai-Wing which animal has the advantage of which element, saying things like “A Dragon can control water.” The choreography here is simply astounding and both men put on a great show. This is one of the best fights ever filmed to show off all five animals in a single sequence, ranking right at the top alongside the finale to The Martial Club.

If I have any complaint about the finale, it’s that Master Kao technically was never the main villain. It was his son, who by this point, has already been dispatched. Kao Tai-Hoi was the rapist and murderer who committed more and more crimes as the film went on. By the time we reached the final act, he had become so loathesome that most viewers would want to see him die. But he’s treated like a secondary villain in that respect. I suppose you can argue that this makes Master Kao a tragic villain, a man so dedicated to preserving the honor of his son that he never sees him for what he really was. Thus, the thrashing he takes at the very end is, in some ways, undeserved. Or you might find him to be a prick, too, and cheer for Sammo at the end.

Thus, the moral of the story: Never challenge a man to a duel if he’s been trained by a drunken master, especially if he was trained in the tiger style. That style is definitely not good for one’s health. 

 

Trivia:

-        The same year, an independent film called Butcher Wing was released. Lesser-known Seven Fortunes troupe member Ng Ming-Choi (best known for getting his neck broken by Bolo Yeung in Enter the Dragon) was cast in the role, with Lee Hoi-San returning as the villain and Wong Fei-Hung played by Jason Pai Piao. Piao had previously played of student of Wong’s in Four Shaolin Challenger (1977) and another hung gar master, Hung Hey Kwun, in Shaolin Rescuers (1979).

-        Yuen Biao plays a well-known pupil of Wong: Ghost Foot Seven (or Gwai Geuk Chat). Biao would also play him in Kick Boxer (1993), a sort of spin-off of Once Upon a Time in China. Other actors who have played him include Bruce Le (Rivals of Kung Fu), Bruce Liang aka Leung Siu-Lung (Four Shaolin Challengers), Jason Pai Piao (The Magnificent Kick) and Xiong Xin Xin (Once Upon a Time in China III and more).

-        Fan Mei-Shang was hired to play the film’s resident drunken master after Yuen Woo-Ping’s father, Simon Yuen Siu-Ting, passed away.

-        Two of Lam Sai-Wing’s pupils were Kwan Tak-Hing and Lau Cham. The latter was the father of Lau Kar-Wing and Lau Kar-Leung, two famous martial arts actors/directors/choreographers.

 

The Critics Rave:

“Sammo Hung and Yuen Woo-Ping teamed up in The Magnificent Butcher and created a great example of how the old-school kung fu genre should be done. There's nothing fancy about this picture...[but] from beginning to end, The Magnificent Butcher is a fine display of the upper-tier of the kung fu genre and should not be missed if you consider yourself a fan. “

-        HK Film Net

“While certainly both Woo Ping and Sammo have made funnier films or films with more impressive fights, they are the top drawer talent of the genre. Measured against most of the films that came out around the same period and the number of Drunken Master/Snake in the Eagles Shadow copycats it is a far superior film.”

-        J. Doylle Wallis (DVD Talk)

“Magnificent Butcher is a classic movie on so many levels...Magnificent Butcher features Sammo at his best and Yuen Woo Ping also directs some top notch action sequences. This movie is recommended to those new to the genre as well as the seasoned veterans.”

-        Love and Bullets

“Featuring light doses of comedy, an all star cast (including Lee Hoi-san, Yuen Biao, Lam Ching-ying, and the late, great Kwan Tak-hing), and some of the best martial arts battles you'll ever see, this is another old school masterpiece that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. “

-        Vic Nguyen (City on Fire)

“Yuen Woo Ping again proves himself as a a master director and the many fight scenes are filled with the kind of inventiveness characteristic of his films. The fight between Wong Fei Hung and Master Kao, both using writing brushes, is a perfect example. A classic of the genre.”

John Richards (Wasted Life)

Bruce the Super Hero (1979)

Bruce the Super Hero (1979)
Aka: Super Hero; Bruce the Superhero
Chinese Title: 黃金喋血
English Translation: Golden Blood

 

Starring: Bruce Le, Lito Lapid, Chiang Tao, Bolo Yeung Sze, Azenith Briones, Cai Qing-Dao, Mike Cohen, Ernie Ortega, Protacio Dee, Ken Watanabe, Subas Herrero
Director: Bruce Le
Action Director: Bruce Le

 

By the end of the 1970s, Bruce Le was busy jumping back and forth between Hong Kong, South Korea and the Philippines making movies. By this point, he had already established himself as a competent screen fighter and fight choreographer. He had now caught the directing bug and was ready to up his game. Bruce the Super Hero, a Hong Kong-Filippino co-production, turned out to not only be his first directorial effort, but his first job as producer, too. It was far from his last however. He would continue to direct his own Brucesploitation movies throughout the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, Bruce would venture out into wuxia fantasy (Ghost of the Fox) and historical exploitation (Comfort Women). After a twenty years hiatus from filmmaking, Bruce would return to directing with the war movies The Eyes of Dawn and On the Nan Ni Wan Frontier.

Bruce the Super Hero is not an especially auspicious debut, but it’s not incompetent, either. It is just a typical generic Brucesploitation opus set in modern times and populated with Japanese villains. Bruce, the second Sino-Japanese War has been over for decades. Get over it. In any case, the movie opens with a Chinese antique shop owner, Susie Chang, being attacked by random thugs dressed in black. She initially fends for herself, but is eventually stabbed to death. However, before she expires, she leaves something with a Good Samaritan: a Filippino boxer named Rocky (Lito Lapid, of Barracuda, Terror of the Sea).

The murderous ruffians belong to the Black Dragon Society, a Filippino crime organization with ties to the Japanese. The object they are after is a hilt to a samurai sword that contains a map to a hidden cache of gold bullion left over from the Second World War. The Black Dragons start harassing Rocky and his family, which ultimately results in Rocky’s father’s death. Meanwhile, Susie’s brother, Bruce Chang (played by Bruce Le), shows up in Manila looking for his sister’s murderers. Eventually, the two fighters team up with a pretty Interpol agent (Azenith Briones, of Temptation Island and Caliber 357) and an equally-pretty female undercover agent to find the treasure and stop the bad guys.

Despite his top billing[1] and roles as producer, director and fight choreographer, Bruce Le is more of a supporting character, showing up mainly when there is someone to beat up. The film mainly revolves around Rocky, played by former boxer, prolific actor and career politician Lito Lapid. Rocky spends the film getting in random fights, schmoozing it up with Marlene the Interpol agent, and watching those close to him get the short end of the stick. And the thing is, Mr. Lapid actually steals the show from Bruce Le. He’s a decent actor, but his boxing skills are undeniable and his hooks and body blows are far more energetic than Bruce Le’s usual mix of hung gar forms and faux-jeet kune do.

Bruce Le does a solid, if unremarkable job, with the action. I’m sure that Lito Lapid looks better with the Hong Kong rhythm of choreography than he might have had with a Hollywood action director. Bruce Le is his usual self: if you like him, you’ll like him here. If you don’t, his fighting performance here will not change your mind. Most of the fights involve one or two people fighting a slew of nameless goons. The big finale is twenty minutes of non-stop martial arts action. In addition to the nameless henchmen, Bruce Le and Lito Lapid take on several mini-bosses, including Bolo Yeung, Ken Watanabe (of the Italian Karate Warrior films, not the fellow from The Last Samurai and the Legendary Godzilla movies), and Ernie Ortega (of Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen). The final fight is a match of Southern Chinese styles between Bruce Le and perennial movie villain Chiang Tao. It’s pretty solid, if standard, fighting until the last part, where Chiang Tao puts on a rubber/leather gauntlet sculpted to look like a cobra’s head(!) and starts using the snake style against Bruce Le! Only Bruce’s Eagle’s Claw (!!) can defeat that particular technique—sort of an inversion of Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow right there. My main complaint is the climax sets up some fights between the two female protagonists and the villains’ stable of fighting hookers, but then cuts away in favor of the men. We never actually get to see the women fight; even if the choreography didn’t come out well, women fighting badly is better than women not fighting at all.

People looking for a Brucesploitation fix can certainly do worse than Bruce the Super Hero. The film doesn’t have the thick veneer of sleaze that would dominate Bruce Le’s later efforts. There is a lot of fighting, most of it fairly competent and even pretty good on occasion. The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when the Japanese members of the Black Dragon Society start yammering about using what amounts to two dufflebags full of gold bullion to return Japan to its former militaristic glory. But you can do a lot worse than that. Oh yeah, so much worse.

---

[1] - Amusingly enough, the dubbed versions of Bruce Le’s film frequently display “Super Star Bruce Le” or “Super Starring Bruce Le” in their opening credits.

Eunuch of the Western Palace (1979)

Eunuch of the Western Palace (1979)
Aka: Flying Fists; Royal Family
Chinese Title: 白馬素車勾魂幡
Translation: White Horse Car Hooking Soul Banner

 

Starring: Mang Fei, Don Wong Tao, Doris Lung Chun-Erh, Lo Lieh, Lung Fei, Tsung Hua, Li Hsin-Hua, Su Chen-Ping, Weng Hsiao-Hu
Director: Wu Ma
Action Director: Chan Long, Huang Fei-Long, Hsiao Huang-Long

Wu Ma was never a great director. It might even be a little charitable to call him a “good” director. Most of the time, he was a competent, if uninspired director. Most of his forays into “good” territory were those movies in which he collaborated with his mentor, Chang Cheh. His solo affairs, however, tended to rest mainly on the strength of the cast and talents of the action director. Thus, movies like The Dead and the Deadly and Kickboxer enjoy cult status mainly because of Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, respectively. While Eunuch of the Western Palace has a solid Taiwanese cast and a provocative opening, it quickly slips into a mundane “rebels vs. tyrant” story and does nothing interesting with it.

We begin with a five-minute documentary about the history of eunuchs in China and what their function in Chinese society was—mainly to serve the women in royalty without any worry the two parties getting sexually involved. The narrator points out that the Bible also mentions eunuchs—most notably, a servant of the Queen of Ethiopa whom was converted to Christianity by the disciple Phillip—as a way of establishing that it was not simply a Chinese phenomenon. We are then “treated” to a supremely uncomfortable scene: a reenactment of the ceremony that produced new eunuchs. In it, we see little boys stripped naked (the camera does not shy away from their genitals) and tied to an altar, at which point the genitals are sliced off (!) with a fearsome-looking blade and the wound is cauterized with a brand. The narrator states that the freshly-mutilated boys had to fast for seven days: if they survived, they would begin their training.

We then start our story proper, which purports to be the tale of real-life eunuch Wang Zhi, who rose to power during the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Wang Zhi (Tsung Hua, The Drinking Knight and Call to Arms) is oppressing the population and controls the Information Bureau, which means that there is nothing going on in the empire that he does not know. We open with a man and wife couple of sword fighters getting ambushed by Wang Zhi’s men. Despite the interference of a wandering fighter named Li Tin-Chin (Don Wong Tao, of Iron Swallow and Ten Shaolin Brothers), the couple are murdered, but not before the lady gives our hero a letter and tells her to pass it on to a trio of kung fu fighters.

Those fighters are Ku Shin-Shu (Meng Fei), the Killing Flag (Doris Lung), and Invincible Sword (Wang Man-Chuan of Along Comes a Tiger). The three receive the letter and head off on their way, while mysterious guy Li Tin-Chin just lurks in the shadows and shows up to get into a fight or two. Meanwhile, Wang Zhi’s men are on the alert, looking for rebels and killing them, trying to get any evidence that will reveal who’s involved in conspiracy against the eunuch. At one point, Ku Shin-Shu is injured and nursed back to health by Lung Fei, whom we know is an agent for the Eunuch.

Ku Shin-Shu’s blind trust for the agent results in one of the rebel movement’s leaders getting captured and tortured by the Eunuch. So Li Tin-Chin and others lead a daring raid on the palace to rescue him. But before they can get him out of harm’s way, the Eunuch sends a super-powerful kung fu master (Lo Lieh, of Shaolin Executioners and Heroes of the Wild) to block our heroes’ path. Will they be able to save the rebel movement and depose the evil Eunuch?

Eunuch of the Western Palace could have been a unique martial arts film steeped in Ming Dynasty intrigue, staging its martial arts bouts around the complex political machinations that would allow a servant to the court to surpass the Emperor in actual power exercised. But we do not get any of that. Instead, this film plays like a third-rate rip-off of Dragon Inn where the heroes just run around dodging or fighting the Eunuch’s agents until it is time for the climax. We do not even get to see much in terms of actual oppression: the characters talk more about how oppressive the Eunuch is than show it.

The story we do get is not particularly well told, either. In the movie, the main villain is conspiring with the Japanese to overthrow the government and take power to himself. But if he already is practically running the show with impunity anyway, is there really a need to get foreign entities involved with the power grab? Or how about the fact that the heroes have a bunch of agents running with fake letters, while the real one is tattooed on the back of one of the organizers…the same one who gets captured and tortured. Did no one thing to strip the man before torturing him? And how to the enemy agents always know where the heroes are? And where are the heroes going and why are they there in any given scene. The film feels like random scenes of our protagonists walking around or meeting up, with no real rhyme or reason to them.  

Despite boasting three action directors—Chan Long (My Life is the Line), Huang Fei-Long (Shaolin Deadly Kicks) and Hsiao Huang-Long (Three Shaolin Musketeers)—the action is rather perfunctory and at times, uninteresting. It does not help that at least two major fight scenes are filmed at night and the VHS transfer renders those fights almost unwatchable. A lot of the fights are short, with the only sustained fights coming at the end. But even so, Wu Ma unwisely skimps on the action, a kiss of death for a kung fu movie whose plot is as murky as this one’s.

The best fight sequence is the finale, in which Don Wong Tao walks into a snow ghost town to deliver a message to the Eunuch. He is ambushed by a dozen or so lackeys dressed up ninjas who are armed with sabers and spears. He kills them all before facing off with a Japanese fighter armed with razor-sharp cymbals. Then, it’s hand-to-hand combat with the Eunuch, who fights with a set of interlocking gold rings. Meanwhile, Meng Fei shows up to fight with Lung Fei, who wields a chain whip. The latter is a weapon that gets little fanfare in kung fu movies, even older ones, so it’s a welcome edition. Sadly, both Doris Lung and Wang Man-Chuan are absent from the climax.

Most the action revolves around weapons fighting, which would lead me to classify the film as a wuxia and not a straight kung fu movie. Meng Fei is armed with a pair of scimitars, while Doris Lung fights with a retractable iron spear. Wang Man-Chuan and Don Wong fight mainly with swords, as do most of the extras and stuntmen. Lo Lieh is wasted in a supporting role as a fighter with tuberculosis—he spends much his limited screen time coughing up blood—but gets two fights, including a decent one against our four heroes near the end. His character and limited fight action gives this film a shot of adrenaline whenever it threatens to go moribund, which unfortunately, is far too often for a movie like this. And for a movie that starts out as interesting as this one does, that’s a huge let down.

Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist (1979)

Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist (1979)
Chinese Title: 怪拳小子
Translation: Peculiar Fist Kid

Starring: Lee Yi-Min, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Cheung Siu-Fan, Leung Tien-Hsiang, Wei Ping-Ao, Lee Man-Tai, Lee Siu-Ming, Yue Hang, Wong Man
Director: Tong Dick
Action Director: Lee Siu-Ming, Jue Lung, Wang Chi-Sheng

 

While it would certainly be unfair to refer to Taiwanese actor Lee Yi-Min as a Jackie Chan imitator, it’s easy to dismiss him as such when you watch some of his most popular films, like World of the Drunken Master, Seven Grandmasters, and Mystery of Chess Boxing. Like Chan, Lee had a strong Peking Opera upbringing and was just as much an acrobat as he was a martial artist. He was especially good at playing the sort of character that Jackie Chan played in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow: the naïve, goofy type who starts off not knowing kung fu, but eventually learns it and becomes better than everyone around him. I think the problem was that he wasn’t very good at playing other roles, where Jackie Chan, despite his own limited range, could easily play intense, arrogant, downtrodden, naïve, or any combination of those.

Like Jackie Chan, he spent a good portion of his career playing bit parts and supporting roles until the late 1970s, when he came out onto his own. Unlike Jackie, however, Lee Yi-Min actually got some good supporting roles in big Shaw Brothers productions like Shaolin Temple and Seven Man Army before he made a name for himself appearing in Taiwanese kung fu comedies. Nonetheless, his most famous films have the specter of Jackie accompanying them and I can’t imagine that Lee Yi-Min was ever able to successfully convince audiences and filmmakers that he was anything but a Jackie Chan clone.

For the record, if there are any actors whom I might dismiss as Jackie Chan clones, I suppose I could name Jackie Chen (aka Chan Siu-Lung), who simultaneously rips off both Jackie and Bruce Lee. Then again, I’ve never seen any of Jackie Chen’s films. I wouldn’t call Cliff Lok one, either, since Cliff was already something of an established actor in the early 1970s. Cliff did have the bad luck of looking like Jackie, so when he inevitably started making kung fu comedies later on, it would’ve been easy to accuse him of engaging in Jackiesploitation. I’d throw my money at Benny Tsui, a third-rate kung fu actor with the ugliest mock Jackie hair I’ve ever seen and who’s a veteran of “classics” like Masters of the Tiger Crane and Incredible Shaolin Thunderkick, which is the only film I’m aware of where the hero performs drunken boxing after drinking water.

Back to Lee Yi-Min, the years 1978 and 1979 were his most prolific years, at least as the leading man. The latter saw Lee participating in two drunken boxing-themed films, even though most of his movies made during this period copied the formula to one degree or another. Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist is probably the lesser of the two films, with World of the Drunken Master having a bit more renown, in part because it was directed by popular independent director Joseph Kuo and was choreographed by a member of the Yuen Clan. Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist doesn’t have anything that can be considered a big name besides Lee Yi-Min, unless you count Lee Man-Tai (Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin and Police Woman), who shows up in role tailored after Drunken Master’s Iron Had Rat. Surprisingly enough, this movie proves to be a fairly entertaining, if lightweight affair that breezes quickly through its brief 78-minute running time, delivering the kung fu goods, if nothing else.

The movie starts out with a kid named Hsiao Hu being trained by a hunchbacked kung fu master (Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, who trained Lee Yi-Min in Mystery of Chess Boxing). The kid grows up to be Lee Yi-Min, who’s labeled an “expert” by his master, but is given the order to never use his skills to beat people up. Hsiao Hu returns home to find out that his rich father had him spend 10 years studying kung fu in order to use him as a free bodyguard and extortionist. When Hsiao Hu refuses to fight on daddy’s command, Hsiao gets the boot and is forced to fend for himself.

Inexplicably, Hsiao goes to the local kung fu school, where he accuses the instructor (Lee Siu-Ming, the film’s choreographer) of having terrible kung fu. This being a kung fu movie, the instructor tries to beat him up. In the real world, the instructor would’ve called the police and had Hsiao Hu arrested for disturbing the peace. Of course, Hsiao doesn’t fight back so much as he dodges his opponent’s kicks with acrobatic grace, although he does get in a powerful head butt to the stomach that ends the fight right then and there. Interestingly enough, it was established in an earlier scene that his head was strong enough to break concrete, even when Hsiao Hu was doing something as simple as kowtowing. But after the fight with the instructor, that particular ability of his is essentially abandoned for the rest of the movie.

Later on, the shamed instructor sends his iron-headed brother to fight Hsiao, but the battle ends in much the same way. A few days later, Instructor and Iron Head are at a restaurant eating when they fall victim to a pretty female pickpocket (Cheung Siu-Fan) who thinks she can trick the audience into thinking she’s a man just because she wears a golf cap. Hsiao Hu shows up at the restaurant and the pickpocket, Hsiao Yen, immediately takes a liking to him. The two are confronted once more by Instructor and Iron Head, and Hsiao Yen gives them a good beating.

Hsiao Hu and Hsiao Yen then have to accept a challenge with those bozos’ master, Master Liu (Wei Ping-Ao, the little squirrelly guy from Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon). Hsiao Yen beats the hell out of him, too, but calls the attention of another wandering fighter, Chow Tao-Hai (Leung Ting-Hsiang, Cripple Lee Becomes Immortal and Sword Stained with Royal Blood). Chow turns out to be the elder martial brother of Hsiao Hu, but for some reason is bent on defeating all of his master’s pupils. Hsiao Hu and Chow Tao-Hai fight, with the former losing big time. Humiliated, Hsiao returns to his master to tell the tale of his miserable defeat. It’s then that the old hunchback decides to teach Hsiao Hu one last kung fu style: the crippled fist technique.

Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist is not much more than your standard Drunken Master clone made on a pretty low budget with only a few recognizable stars. All of the expected beats are hit: old, powerful master? Check. Hero who thinks he knows how to fight but gets beat down by the main villain? Check. Hero who has to learn a new kung fu style in order to win the rematch? Check. Villain who challenges the hero at the end because someone else hired him to? Check. Heck, this film even goes so far as to have our protagonist have conflicts with his dad, although this time around, it’s more the father’s fault than the son’s.

What keeps the movie from yet another tired clone (and trust me, there are lots out there) is that the film runs a scant 78 minutes and the usual momentum-stopping comic interludes always come in the form of elaborately-choreographed fight scenes, instead of silly pranks that only undemanding children would find funny. Even the goofy scenes involving Wei Ping-Ao are fun to watch on account of the cute Cheung Siu-Fan giving him the onscreen beating we wanted him to get in those Bruce Lee films he showed up in.

I’m actually rather quite impressed with the level of skill present in Lee Siu-Ming’s action direction. Despite a solid career in the 1970s spanning about 22 films, he only worked as a fight choreographer in four, three of which are pretty obscure films. As far as I know, Son of Yellow Dragon and Snake in the Crane’s Shadow don’t have very much in the way of cult followings. In this film, however, he’s able to stage a number of fight scenes with the same level of complexity and elegance as the Venom Mob or the Yuen Clan, at least whenever Lee Yi-Min is fighting. Oh sure, there are a few “Me too!” moments, notably a complex duel between Lee and a trio of spearmen that Jackie Chan had done twice before in The Fearless Hyena and Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin. But the bulk of the action is quite enjoyable Lee Yi-Min gets a pretty good showcase. The final battle is a bit reminiscent of the final fight of Knockabout, with Lee Yi-Min constantly switching styles (Mantis, Drunken Boxing, Monkey Fist) until he finds one he can defeat his opponent with.

There is some drunken boxing in this film, although it hardly gets a full showcase. Early on, Lee Yi-Min is seen practicing forms while his snobby father is picking a fight with the other men of the village. One of the sets he performs is the drunken gods form, which isn’t bad. It certainly doesn’t match the famous 8 Drunk Gods sequence in Drunken Master, but at least it’s there. Then, during the final fight, Lee uses some drunken boxing against Leung Tien-Hsiang, although he fails to defeat him with it. He’s certainly more convincing than Meng Fei was, but there’s not nearly enough.

More important to this film is the “Crippled Fist” technique, which looks sort of Jackie Chan’s drunken boxing, but performed by a person with cerebral palsy. There are lots of butterfly twists performed in this particular style, something that Lee Yi-Min was always good at doing. Much like the drunken boxing, the Crippled Fist only shows up in two scenes. In the first, Lee Yi-Min learns it following a brief exhibition by Simon Yuen. The two have a sparring match with the style that suggests that Lee Yi-Min’s character is so awesome that he can learn a technique that supposedly only actual cripples can master, despite not being handicapped in any way. Needless to say it’s not very convincing. Its application in the finale is negligible, although it does allow Lee Yi-Min to perform some nice footwork at the end.

Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist is a harmless way to spend 78 minutes and comes closer to being a decent kung fu family film than, say, the original Drunken Master. Nobody actually dies in this movie, and when drunken boxing is performed, there isn’t any alcohol being consumed. There’s a lot of solid action in it, which is a must for this type of a film. That’s really the best I can say about it.