Black Belt Karate (1977)

Black Belt Karate (1977)
Chinese Title: 黑帶空手道
Translation: Black Belt Karate

 

Starring: Larry Lee Gam-Kwan, Lo Lieh, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, Billy Chong Chuen-Lei, Chiang Tao, Peter Chan Lung, Tony Leung Siu-Hung
Director: Suen A-Foo
Action Director: Larry Lee, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung

 

Okay, I watched this last night and I rather enjoyed it. It was one of those films that I was watching it, I wonder why it isn't more well known. We fans often take it as conventional wisdom that Heroes of the East was the first Chinese kung fu movie to treat Japanese martial arts with any degree of real respect. However, this film predates it by a year and Larry Lee, who apparently is a black belt in Goju-ryu (the same style that Yukari Oshima trained in, and apparently both Steven Seagal and Cynthia Rothrock have trained in it, too), gives the style an excellent showcase, giving it all the respect that it deserves. I should point out that I trained in Goju-Ryu for a number of years as an adolescent, so I might be biased.

Larry Lee (best known for his collaborations with Bruce Leung Siu-Lung) plays Tommy, a country hick who shows up in Jakarta, Indonesia looking for work. He's also obsessed with karate, despite not actually knowing it. In typical kung fu movie fashion, he works a menial job deliving food, making periodic stops in front of a karate school in order to pick up a movement or two. He eventually gets fired, but is taken in by the head of the karate school, whose daughter has grown fond of him. Tommy is an exceptional student and learns quickly, even winning a trophy at the local amateur provincial tournament. Some misunderstandings lead to him getting kicked out of the school, but some treachery on the part of the school's head instructor leads the sensei to reinstate Tommy as a student and send him to Hong Kong for further training.

While not a Brucesploitation film per se, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung shows up in the last half hour as Larry's advanced karate instructor. Leung Siu-Lung's Wikipedia page suggests that he trained in Goju-Ryu karate himself, although interviews with him suggest he studied only Northern kung fu and wing chun. In any case, Leung does his own thing in his fights, including a prolonged fight between him and perennial movie heavy Chiang Tao. That means machine gun punches and lots of spinning and roundhouse kicks, all performed with speed and power. He also does some Bruce Lee-esque nose thumbings, but nothing too Bruce-like. Indonesian actor Billy Chong makes an early HK appearance as the sensei's son and Larry's best friend. His character doesn't give a great performance, since his character is depicted as never quite being good enough. He does throw a few good kicks in his final fight and does some Bruce Lee-inspired gestures, too.

That said, Larry Lee is at his absolute best here. A far cry from his manic basher fighting in Showdown At the Equator and his competent-but-not-great shapes in Four Shaolin Challengers, Lee is completely in his element fighting with pure Goju-Ryu. One thing I like is that the film is set in the modern day, but Lee choreographs the fights to look like shapes-oriented combat, but with authentic karate techniques and stances instead of kung fu. It's not *realistic*, but it shapes choreography isn't meant to be. His punches and kicks are crisper than they were in his other films and I just enjoy seeing joint kicks, mawashi (wheel) blocks, saifa (elbow) strikes and whatnot be incorporated so cleanly into the fighting. 

My only complaint about the action is that the relative realism of the fights is lost in the big finale, when the script suddenly introduces a new final boss, played by Lo Lieh. Lo Lieh shows up wearing a cape and challenges Larry Lee to a duel to the death. Lee fights with Sammo Hung regular Peter Chan and then Lo Lieh. That's where the trampoline jumps, edited flips and more exaggerated aspects of 70s kung fu action kick in. After the pure karate of the earlier fights, plus the manic no-frills fighting performance of Bruce Liang, the final fight is a bit of a letdown. The choreography isn't *bad*, but I wish they had gotten Yasuaki Kurata or Chen Sing to be the main karate heavy.