King of the Sea (1994)

King of the Sea (1994)
Chinese Title: 張保仔
Translation: Cheung Bo-Chi

 

Starring: Conan Lee, Ken Low, Cecilia Yip
Director: Cheung Gwok-Ching
Action Director: Lam Moon Wah

 

Back in the early 1990s, dozens of movies were being made, most of which were either about Jet Li’s quest to portray every Chinese folk hero in existence, or about Ching Siu-Tung dropping acid and saying, “Let’s do a wuxia film!” The rest were made up of movies trying to copy those two types of movies. While most of those movies have become available to kung fu fans everywhere on DVD, this particular film apparently was overlooked, having gotten a little lost in the ruckus. It was available on VHS from Tai Seng Video (the go-to place for Asian cinema before American distributors started getting in on the action) for a while, but sometime around the end of the last decade,  Tai Seng either changed their business model or dropped out of the game altogether and the film became even *harder* to find. But I was able to score a copy from a friend and here I am reviewing it to you.

The movie is set during the Ching Dynasty circa the late 1800s (although the real Cheung Bo Chi lived at the end of the previous century), when the foreigners were pouring into the China and treating everybody around them like second-class citizens. Moreover, the British were involved in opium selling, turning in huge profits while destroying families and promoting addiction. I know a lot of reviewers complain about the opium angle being used too much in these movies, but this is only the fourth film I’ve seen this in (the others being Martial Arts Master Wong Fei Hung; Tai Chi II; and Heroes Among Heroes). The movie proper opens with a family fishing out at sea. Their boat is ran over by a British cruise ship. In one of the goofiest anti-foreigner moments I’ve seen in a film like this, the captain asks if his ship is okay, ignoring the fact that three Chinese people have been left to drown. The kid, Bo Chi (who’ll be played as an adult by Conan Lee of Ninja in the Dragon’s Den) is rescued by some Robin Hood-esque pirates, who raise him and teach him kung fu.

Years later, Bo Chi is an adult and a powerful kung fu fighter. He kinda likes his “older sister” (Cecilia Yip), but she’s been betrothed to Bo Chi’s foster father, who’s already an old man. Bo Chi’s being favored by foster dad angers Po Ta (Ken Low, of Mahjong Dragon and Drunken Master II), the half-Japanese pirate who’s practically Bo Chi’s brother. Whatever. There’s a raid on a British opium ship that is successful, save the part where a woman in a nice Western dress stabs foster dad to death. Bo Chi and Elder Sister/Stepmother are put in charge of the pirates, much to Po Ta’s chagrin. Their first course of action is to use their treasure to buy up huge quantities of rice and distribute it to the poor.

Meanwhile, the head of the East Indies Company is complaining to the local Mandarin about his ships being ransacked. This leads to a priceless scene where the Ching official and businessman are talking to each other via an interpreter. At the end of his spiel, the Englishman curses the official with a good ol’ “Fuck you!” Suddenly,  the official starts speaking in English, telling the foreigner that he’ll go after the pirates when he darn well pleases, ending his speech with, “Oh, and one more thing: Fuck you too!”

Bo Chi and his team decide to invade in the East Indies company building to figure out what the shipping schedule is. While this is going, Bo Chi stops by a brothel and falls in love with the newest prostitute, whose virginity is being sold to the highest bidder. He rescues her from the lecherous old man who won the auction, although she distrusts him as much as she does the john who bought her. Not the one to give up, Bo Chi asks his Elder Sister/Stepmother for enough money to buy the woman out, despite the fact that Stepmother is still in love with Bo Chi. Bo Chi goes to the brothel and beats everybody up before finding the girl, who’s been bloodied up by her latest john. He takes her in and marries her, although their honeymoon doesn’t last long.

While all this was going on, Pa To had joined another group of pirates, who wish to take Bo Chi out of the equation. They stage a raid on Bo Chi’s headquarters, and a big fight ensues. Said fight is broken up by the sudden appearance of Ching Soldiers. A lot of people die, yadda yadda yadda. Then we get to the end, which is kind of bizarre. The Ching Official from a few paragraphs up was himself against the opium dealers, but made a deal with the Englishman that if he would kill the pirates, the English would stop bringing opium into China. The Englishman lied, of course, because he’s an evil foreigner, you know. This leads to a naval battle between the Ching fleet and a single British warship. The Chinese ships are brutally massacred by superior Western firepower. Admiral Kick-a-Puppy even opens fire on civilian boats filled with farmers. Finally, the pirates show up and lead a raid on the warship. Chinese patriotism prevails again!

It goes without saying that the Once Upon a Time in China series is the quintessential series of kung fu movies that Hong Kong made in the 1990s. One might refer to the faux-prequel, Iron Monkey, as being its child. The movies Heroes Among Heroes, Kick Boxer, and Fist from Shaolin might be considered its cousins. The low-budget Martial Arts Master Wong Fei Hung could be thought of as the Milhouse to OUATIC’s Bart Simpson. Last Hero in China would be the Uncle Buck of the family. King of the Sea, in final analysis, would be the pathetic screw up of the classroom that would like to be like OUATIC, but is too much of a sleaze to pull it off. This is easily the sleaziest of the 90s “New Wave” movies I’ve seen. Prostitution is a big part of the story. There’s a random scene early on where we see some men selling their daughters into prostitution (run by some British guy). When the girls are presented to said Englishman, he forces one girl’s head into his lap and sodomizes another. While it’s not extremely explicit in its presentation, it’s uncomfortable and exists only to remind us how EEEEEEEEEEVIL the foreigners are.

Unfortunately, the film’s sleaze and racism aren’t its only faults. The action, brought to us by the…*cough*…great Lam Moon Wah is rather lackluster, too. Lam Moon Wah is best known for working with big actors on their lesser projects, like the guy you go to when you don’t have enough money for a choreographer with the last name of Yuen. The man’s work is horribly inconsistent. Few people have anything good to say about the action in Killer of Snakes, Fox of Shaolin, but the finale to The Club is considered one of the greatest Hong Kong action scenes ever. The man did stellar work in Hero of Swallow and Young Hero of Shaolin II, but nobody seems to care about his work in the late Shaw Bros. film Journey of the Doomed.  In this film, there are too many quick cuts to spoil the action; the actors rarely perform more than two moves before the camera cuts to somebody flying back. The wirework is thankfully restrained, but the choreography itself feels too watered down. Ken Low throws some good kicks, but did better work in his Jackie Chan movie appearances. His jumping spin kicks look powerful, but his flying side kicks are less impressive for being so obviously wired-up. Conan Lee, who looked friggin’ awesome in the 1982 Ninja in the Dragon’s Den, is unimpressive here. None of the other performers stand out.

I watched this movie for three reasons. First, I want to watch all of the movies that were produced by Hong Kong during the wire-fu, period-piece boom of the 1990s. So I’m satisfied that I got to see the movie in the first place. Second, I like Ken Low and his kicking. So that makes me a bit disappointed that he wasn’t given more and better fight scenes. Finally, I liked Lam Moon Wah’s work in the wire-fu film Hero of Swallow enough to have this hope that this film would be entertaining fight-wise. When the man is given the appropriate budget, shooting time and talent, he can actually turn in some good work. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. There’s almost no reason to watch this movie, unless you’re the most hardcore of Hong Kong cinephiles.