The Victim (1980)

The Victim (1980)
Chinese Title: 身不由己
Translation: In Spite of Oneself

Starring: Sammo Hung, Leung Kar-Yan, Fanny Wang, Chang Yi, Wilson Tong, Chung Fat, Karl Maka, Huang Ha
Director: Sammo Hung
Action Directors: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Lam Ching-Ying, Billy Chan

 

It might go without saying that I’m a huge fan of the Seven Fortunes, better known to those of unfamiliar with such Hong Kong Cinema terms as Jackie Chan and those who studied at the same Peking Opera School as him. His two most famous colleagues are Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. The former was at one time, during the 80s, one of the greatest onscreen fighters ever and a world-class superkicker, not to mention a solid actor and action director. The latter can easily be considered one of the most important people ever to enter the martial arts movie genre. Even at the beginning of his career in the early 1970s, Sammo Hung quickly showed audiences that he was one of the best fight choreographers in the business and, when his own career really took off in the second half of the 1970s, it was evident that he was one of the best martial arts actors AND directors in the business.

That continued for most of the 1980s after which his career ran into some obstacles in the latter end of the decade (at least fame-wise, he still continued to make great movies, though), caused in big part supposedly because of his looked-down on relationship with Joyce Mina Godenzi. His career slowed down in the 1990s during the big wire-fu boom. The once prolific actor-director-choreographer only worked on a few movies during this period, like the excellent Blade of Fury, the over-the-top Kung Fu Cult Master, and the Louis Cha/Jin Yong adaptation films Eagle Shooting Heroes and Ashes of Time. I’ve said this before in numerous other reviews but, it was probably for the best because Sammo Hung is not as good at doing wire fu as his contemporaries Ching Siu-Tung and Yuen Woo-Ping.

 Then, in the latter half of the first decade of the new Millenium, something wonderful happened. Donnie  Yen had Sammo Hung cast as the main villain in the violent police thriller SPL (or Killzone in the USA) and Hung’s career—let’s remember that he was already 53 at this point—received a life-bringing booster shot to the rear. Once more, Sammo Hung became a respected martial arts actor and choreographer and continues to find work, even though he’s now pushing 60.

Back in the early 1970s, Sammo Hung essentially cut his teeth in the genre working on Angela Mao films, with the occasional big budget King Hu epic to also give him practice. Truth to be told, his work with Angela Mao is, in my opinion, far better than the work that genre veterans Lau Kar-Leung and Tong Gaai were doing at the Shaw Brothers at the same time. Much like Lau Kar-Leung, in the second half of the 1970s, Sammo decided to helm his own films, although unlike Lau, he worked for Golden Harvest Studios instead of the Shaw Brothers. However, a almost all of Sammo Hung’s films from 1977 until 1982, with his traditional kung fu swan song, The Prodigal Son, are considered genre classics and masterpieces of one type or another.

Let’s take a look:

The Iron Fisted Monk – Considered an old school classic with some excellent Southern style kung fu up in. Features one of Fung Hak-On’s best performances.

Warriors Two – One of the quintessential films about wing chun and has one of the best final fights of the old school era.

Enter the Fat Dragon – Generally considered to be the best Bruce Lee imitation/homage film of them all, beating out all the films of Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, etc.

Knockabout – Yuen Biao’s first starring role and arguably his best fighting performances period. Considered by many to be one of the best films of the late 1970s.

The Odd Couple – Generally considered to be the best weapons film after Lau Kar-Leung’s Legendary Weapons of China.

Encounter of the Spooky Kind – Probably the quintessential kung fu-horror-comedy to come out of Hong Kong (I like it even more than the cult favorite Mr. Vampire).

The Magnificent Butcher – Many people think it’s Sammo’s best film and rank it alongside Jackie Chan’s The Drunken Master as the top of kung fu comedy of the late 1970s.

The Prodigal Son – Many have lauded this films as the best kung fu movie of all time, period. It’s certainly the best film to portray the wing chun style, at least before the Ip Man movies.

I could go on, but I think you get my point.

So that takes us to this film. Made in 1980, the same year that Sammo made the superb Encoutner of the Spooky Kind, The Victim was, as it appears, an independent production. You wouldn’t think so, if you were to judge by the film’s cast, which is made up of the usual suspects from Sammo’s other big studio films, plus Taiwanese mainstay Chang Yi. Nonetheless, it does have that more “spare” look that befit so many cheap kung fu comedies made around that period. The difference here is that this one benefits from Sammo and his crew, which makes a world of difference in the kung fu movie world.

The movie opens with a conversation being held between two unseen people, who seem to be discussing some sort of plot to commit a murder. Well, one of the speakers is supposedly being hired by the other. After that brief sequence, we cut to Chan Wing (Sammo Hung, The Gambling Ghost and Ip Man 2), a young fighter who’s looking for a master. Basically, his ploy is the following: he finds a fighter whom he thinks is competent and challenges him. If he loses, then he’ll allow himself to be taken on as a student. If he loses, well, he’ll just keep on looking. This plotline was lifted practically wholesale about 3 year later in the Taiwanese classic Shaolin vs. Lama, in which Alexander Lo Rei did the exact same thing.

Chan Wing’s first opponent is a fellow nicknamed The Phantom Killer (Chung Fat, best known as the “Crazy Eyebrow Guy” from Yes, Madam! And Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars). Chan Wing easily puts The Phantom Killer to shame, but is then invited to take on his master, played by Huang Ha (the wonderful choreographer who made David Chiang look better than Lau Kar-Leung ever was able to in The Loot and The Challenger). Thus we are treated two an awesome weapons duel (3-section staff vs. kwan do) and once again, Chan comes out as victor. That master then invites Chan Wing to take on his master, a Shaolin monk played by Karl Maka (The Aces Go Places series). As some of you may take note, Karl Maka is not really a martial artist, so you can probably figure out where that fight will end up going.

Anyways, Chan Wing eventually comes across a kung fu master played by Leung Kar-Yan (The Fearless Dragons and My Life is on the Line). Leung wipes the floor with Chan Wing, who immediately wishes to become his student. Leung refuses, though, and Chan starts following him around and generally becoming a nuisance. One day, a group of thugs working for Leung’s brother, Jo Wing (Chang Yi, Shaolin Invincible Sticks and The Traitorous), come to Leung’s house looking to settle an old score. Leung and his wife flee, leaving Chan Wing to take on the brigands.

Leung’s wife eventually breaks down and tells Chan Wing the whole story: Leung was the adopted son of a kung fu master and something of a favorite of his adopted father. His adopted brother was always jealous of him and, on the day of Leung’s wedding, tried to rape his bride. Leung and his wife barely got away with their lives that evening, and have been on the run ever since.

After killing a would-be assassin, Chan Wing begins taunting his would-be master, calling him a coward for not sticking up for him and his wife and always running. After a while, Leung loses it and fights Chan Wing, giving him another sound beating. Shortly thereafter, an old friend of Leung’s shows up and informs him that his father is on his deathbed. The two go to pay their final respects to his father. The father asks Leung to take care of and forgive his brother, despite all the trouble he has caused. Yeah, that’ll work. “Yes, your brother tried to rape your wife and is always trying to kill you, but take care of the big lug anyways.” Some father he is.

After he dies, Jo Wing arranges for a bunch of armed men to ambush Leung, his friend, and Chan. Cue a very big and long fight scene. Said fight scene goes on for long enough that it’s only settled when Leung’s wife offers to stay behind with Chang, much to the latter’s pleasure. Leung is devastated and leaves with Chan. However, before Chang can have his way the poor girl, she commits suicide.

It’s at this point that Leung finally consents to teach Chan kung fu. As Chan’s kung fu gets better, Jo Wing will show us that he’ll stop at nothing to kill his younger brother, leading to some very interesting and disturbing twists in our story.

First off, this is a Sammo Hung movie, and like most Sammo Hung movies, it is practically two different films in one, if we go by the overall tone of the film. The movie begins as a typical post-Drunken Master comedy, with some of the fights being played for laughs, most notably a fight in a bathhouse and the aforementioned showdown with Karl Maka. Sammo plays to a type: a bumbling heavy-set guy who’s incredibly good at kung fu. However, the more we get to know Leung, the more serious and tragic the film becomes. By the end, practically all of the supporting cast is dead and the film becomes a violent revenge film, which you might not have seen coming in the film’s first act, very much like his last classic from the 1980s, The Pedicab Driver.

That said, there are two bits of comedy in the last act that will make Hong Kong neophytes scratch their heads in confusion. The first part occurs after the wife’s suicide, when Sammo goes to procure the woman’s body…dressed as Dracula! Not a Chinese hopping vampire, mind you, but Dracula! I assume that Sammo wanted to lighten up the mood at least a little (or the producers wanted him to), but yeesh! The second part really had me scratching my head.

The acting is pretty solid all around. The show belongs to Leung Kar-Yan and Chang Yi. Leung plays the righteous master quite well, and few actors outside of Bruce Lee can do the release-the-pent-up-anger face as well as Leung could. Chang Yi, who by this time had already had ample experience playing the villain in Taiwanese films, gives one of his best (and slimiest) performances as the sleazy brother. Sammo Hung is his usual self: goofy, likable, and hardcore when it comes to fighting.

Naturally, what people will most remember from this film will be the fight scenes, of which there are a good number. The weapons duel between Sammo Hung and Huang Ha early on is one of the best three-section staff duels I’ve ever seen, even compared to the stuff choreographed by Lau Kar-Leung. Sammo’s fight at the bathhouse features a lot of naked men, but also some really good choreography that foresees the sort of modern choreography that we’d see from Hung a couple of  years later in films like Carry On, Pickpocket and Winners and Sinners.

The two main showstoppers, however, are the final two duels involving Leung Kar-Yan. One must understand that Leung Kar-Yan was NOT an actual martial artist when he started making films around 1974 (his first films were Shaolin Martial Arts and Five Shaolin Masters, both directed by Chang Cheh). He was simply an athletic man that could do everything the choreographer asked him to do. That seemed to be enough, because the man  built a very solid career during the old school period and is well-loved by fans, who call him “Beardy”, to this very day.

Anyways, the first classic fight is at the climax, and sees Leung Kar-Yan taking on Wilson Tong. Wilson Tong plays an assassin known as the “Foot Doctor”, which leads one to believe that he’s a sort of kicker. Thus, we get to see an incredibly complex display of hand and legwork from Tong and Leung during their fight. It’s a fascinating fight.

The final fight between Leung Kar-Yan and Chang Yi is regarded by many as one of the classic old school fights and with good reason: it’s simply one of the most intense fight scenes I’ve seen in an old school film. From the basic, but painful-looking stuntwork consisting of the two falling through chairs to the impression to two transmit of two men savagely trying to beat each other to death, the fight is no joke. As good as Taiwanese choreographer Tommy Lee was, he never got the intensity out of Chang Yi that Sammo Hung got here. Simply marvelous.

The Victim is in no way perfect, but it still stands out on Sammo’s résumé as one of the great kung fu films made in the dying years of the genre and should be a high point on the résumé of all the actors involved.