Hero of the Waterfront (1973)

Hero of the Waterfront (1973)
Aka Hero of Chiu Chow
Chinese Title: 潮州怒漢
Translation: Raging Guy from Chiu Chow

 

Starring: Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, Joan Lin, Cho Kin, Hon Siu, Miao Tian
Director: Wong Sing-Loy
Action Directors: Chan San-Yat, Chin Wan-Che, Hsiao Pao, Tu Chi

 

Hero of the Waterfront’s main point of distinction is that it’s the debut film of bootmaster Dorian Tan Tao-Liang. If not for that, it would be nothing but an uninspired Big Boss rip-off with little to recommend it. Tan’s physicality, while not used as creatively as it would be in some of his later films, is the film’s sole saving grace.

Tan plays Kuan Chiang-Chow, a mariner/dock laborer (probably the former) who’s about to get some long-term work on a British vessel. Things immediately take a downturn when the British shipping magnate cuts the workers’ pay to 20 dollars a person, stating that Chinese lives are worth very little. Knowing that the workers will notice this when they receive their customary pay advances (which is what their families live on while they’re away), the Chinese guy in charge of hiring the mariners (Mang Chiu-Fan) decides to not pay the advances in order to get them on the ship so they won’t be able to complain when they get back.

This doesn’t work. A riot quickly breaks out and some laborers are beaten before Kuan steps in and fights on their behalf. Thus starts a cycle in which the bosses claim that they’ll pay, find some way to weasel out of it, try to ambush Kuan, and get the snot kicked out of them instead. About halfway through the film, the bosses stage a bloody ambush which results in Kuan’s uncle and brother being murdered, not to mention his sister-and-law and her mother getting kidnapped. So Kuan goes on the offensive killing both mid-level managers (one of whom is played by Miao Tian) and then going for the boss. The boss tries to save his skin by offering Kuan a job as a manager. If he accepts, he may be able to do good for his fellow workers and help them out. If he doesn’t, he may lose his life. Now, which option do you think will result in more facekicks, punches, bludgeonings with blunt objects, stabbings, shootings, snappings and breakings?

So this is very familiar stuff. Wong Sing-Loy, best known by me for directing Angry Young Man, one of the few old school movies I actively loathe, can’t even be bothered to bring the exploitation film elements that Lo Wei brought to The Big Boss. There’s an extra helping of weeping women and melodrama, but that gets old fairly fast.

The action is brought to you by Chan San-Yat, best known for being Chang Cheh’s “transitional” choreographer after Lau Kar-Leung went his own way and before the Venom Mob era began. Chan worked on The Shaolin Temple; Shaolin Avengers; and Grandmaster of Death, among others. The other three choreographers didn’t have anything resembling a career, at least not in film. Any protagonist who isn’t Tan Tao-Liang gets brutalized without showing any skill, so the bulk of the film’s MA content falls to Mr. Flashlegs himself. His kicks are quite good, especially by 1973 standards: high side kicks, fast front hook kicks, powerful spin kicks. Only Whang In-Sik and Bruce Lee were at his level at this point in the game. His hand techniques are pretty basic, but at least it’s not mindless arm flailing. There’s just not a lot of imagination thrown into the fights. Even when Tan goes to a foundry to fight one of the villains, Tan just swings back and forth on a rope, kicking people into molten steel. I was hoping for some pre-Drunken Master 2 fighting with hooks, bars and all sorts of tools, but no. I think the action directors’ inexperience and the limitations of the basher genre kept Chan San-Yat and company from doing better fights in this movie.

Mang Chiu-Fan, who plays the main villain, does do some interesting deflecting techniques and palm-based strikes, which made me think of tai chi chuan. If that was the case, this would beat the Shaw Bros film The Shadow Boxer as the first film to showcase real tai chi onscreen.

Tan made an OK start here, but he would certainly go on to better things afterward.