Hap Ki Do (1972)

Hap Ki Do (1972)
Aka: Lady Kung Fu; Hapkido
Chinese Title: 合氣道
Translation: Aikido[1]

 

Starring: Angela Mao Ying, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Carter Wong, Pai Ying, Whang In-Shik, Ji Han-Jae, Yamane Teruo, Chin Ti, Nancy Sit Ka-Yin, Wei Ping-Ao, Sun Lan, Lee Ka-Ting, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, Yeung Wai, Hsu Hsia
Director: Huang Feng
Action Director: Sammo Hung

There was a four-month difference in between the release of Lady Whirlwind and Hap Ki Do in Hong Kong theaters. What is particularly fascinating is just how much fight choreographer Sammo Hung had grown in that period. Perhaps he finished his hapkido training alongside Angela Mao and was just more prepared for a fighting point of view. Perhaps he had sat down at some private theater at Golden Harvest and watched Fist of Fury on repeat until something just clicked. Whatever the case, his work on Hap Ki Do represented some of the best fight action committed to screen up to that point.

The movie opens in 1934 with three Chinese patriots in Korea learning martial arts…hapkido to be specific. They are Yu Ying (Angela Mao Ying); Kao Chung (Carter Wong, in his first screen role); and Fan Wei (Sammo Hung, in his first role as a leading protagonist). The three beat up some Japanese miscreants in the first scene. Unfortunately, as Korea is Japanese territory at that point, such an act of defiance will not be taken lightly by the authorities. Their teacher (Ji Han-Jae of Fist of Unicorn and Game of Death) gives them their black belts and tells them to go back to China and spread knowledge of the art to others. He also urges them to exercise patience with the Japanese, both for their sakes and for the art.

Some time later, the three have set up a school somewhere in China. They are urged to visit the local kung fu schools and befriend the local masters. Unfortunately, one of the local schools is the Black Bear Judo School, run by the Japanese master Toyoda (Teruo Yamane, of Hanzo the Razor: Who’s Got the Gold? and Zatoichi’s Conspiracy). Before Yu Ying and her colleagues can pay their respects to the Black Bear School, Fan Wei makes the (righteous) mistake of beating up some their students (including a young Leung Siu-Lung) after they try to molest a girl.

This starts an unending cycle of violence between the two schools. While Yu Ying tries to keep her cool, Kao Chung heads over to the Black Bear school to seek peace. Meanwhile, Fan Wei picks another fight with the Black Bear bullies in the market, which ends with two of them dead (including a young Lam Ching-Ying).  The Black Bear students retaliate by attacking and nearly crippling Kao Chung, while pressuring Yu Ying to turn in Fan Wei, who has now gone into hiding. When the Black Bear school discovers the whereabouts of Fan Wei, they send in their top instructor (Pai Ying, of Lady Whirlwind and The Angry River) to deal with him, whom Fan Wei is ill-equipped to fight. Once Yu Ying stumbles across her friend’s body, she decides that “patience” is no longer a virtue and takes the fight into her own hands.

Most viewers will notice that despite being an Angela Mao vehicle first and foremost, she does not get to fight a lot in the movie. After the short opening fight and a hapkido demonstration in the following scene, she drifts into the background as Sammo Hung’s impulsive Fan Wei takes center stage. It is only when the Black Bear School results to outright murder that Angela Mao steps in, which is nearly an hour into the movie. Nonetheless, there are a number of great fights up until then, including several great showcases for Sammo Hung and Carter Wong.

Carter Wong makes his acting debut in this movie. He would show up in several other Golden Harvest productions, including the Angela Mao films When Tae Kwon Do Strikes and The Tournament, before heading over to Taiwan to make movies there. Carter Wong trained in several martial arts, including karate, muay thai, Shaolin kung fu, and Wudan Qigong. He was the first karate instructor to open a studio in the Portuguese territory of Macau and had a successful career as a professional muay thai fighter as well. He even had stints as both a karate instructor for the Hong Kong Police and a muay thai instructor for the US Marine Corps.

Wong is given a chance to shine in his own Dojo Fight™ against the Black Bear School. Wong had also studied a bit of hapkido, which he incorporated along with the other fighting forms he studied into his own kung fu style. Wong tended to look better in fights like these rather than the technique-based “shapes” fights that became popular once the Shaw Brothers started their “Shaolin Cycle.” But that also may have a bit to do with the fact that Taiwanese choreographers were generally not as good as their Hong Kong counterparts and tended to have even tighter shooting schedules as well. Nonetheless, Carter Wong’s big fight is one of the best moments of his film career.

Most viewers will pick up this movie because of Angela Mao and will come away satisfied with her fights that take up the entire third act of the movie. She starts off with a dust-up against a katana-wielding Korean turncoat of the Black Bear school, whom she ultimately disarms and defeats wielding an umbrella—19 years before Once Upon a Time in China made umbrella fights cool again. She also gets her own Dojo Fight™, where she destroys everyone who opposes her with her throws, takedowns and head kicks, including the assistant instructor, played by Kickboxer’s Lee Ka-Ting. Later on, she savagely kills several of the Black Bear students as they wait at her school to ambush her.

The big climax is broken into four parts. Angela Mao is joined at one point by her school’s top student, played by real-life hapkido master Whang In-Sik. Whang was hired by Bruce Lee to be one of the karate villains in Way of the Dragon, but had little chance to strut his stuff. Not here. His kicking is one of the film’s highlights as he gets his own Dojo Fight™ and demonstrates why Jackie Chan would want to hire him years later for both The Young Master and Dragon Lord. After Whang mops the floor with the lesser fighters, Angela Mao takes on Pai Ying in retribution for her friends’ murders. Finally, Whang In-Sik and Angela Mao take turns fighting main baddie Teruo Yamana, who challenges them with his judo skills, and then with his kenjutsu abilities. Throughout all of this, you can see just how far Sammo had come in how he choreographs the fights against multiple opponents, how crisp his players’ moves are—watch how Angela’s kicks have improved in both height and power—and just how intense the fighting is compared to the fun, if crude, Lady Whirlwind.

Most viewers will ignore that the film is largely a reworking of Fist of Fury, right down to Paul Wei Ping-Ao’s role as the Black Bear School secretary. They will ignore that Angela is almost a background character throughout the second act. They will even ignore the standard anti-Japanese sentiment that defined so many Chinese kung fu movies of that period. Instead, they will remember this film for Angela’s legendary beatdowns and some of the best fight choreography of the early 1970s…and they will be right for it.

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[1] - The characters read in Mandarin as “He Qi Dao”. We may assume then that the Chinese term for the Korean martial art hapkido and the Japanese martial art aikido are one and the same.