Tornado of Pearl River (1974)

Tornado of Pearl River (1974)
Chinese Title: 珠江大風暴
Translation: Pearl River Storm

 

Starring: Tan Tan-Liang, Wong Fei-Lung, Woo Gam, Han Ying-Chieh, Mang Chiu-Fan, Wei Ping-Ao
Director: Wong Sing-Loy
Action Directors: Tan Tao-Liang, Max Lee, Han Ying-Chieh

 

Tan Tao-Liang’s sophomore effort is essentially a remake of his first film, Hero of the Waterfront, much in the same way that Jackie Chan’s first two big hits were very much the same movie. Both films have very similar stories, dealing with the conflicts between oppressed dock workers and their brutal overseers. This one wears its Big Boss inspiration on its sleeve with more scenes to remind you of that other movie, not to mention Han Ying-Chieh in cast and Bruce Lee regular Wei Ping-Ao thrown in for good measure. It also shares the same fundamental flaws as The Big Boss, namely that the action is crude and generic and uninteresting whenever the Flashlegs isn’t unleashing his famous bootwork.

In the early days of the Chinese Republic era, dockworkers in Macau are being mistreated by their Chinese overseers, who themselves are working for foreign shipping companies. An accident on the job reveals that the cargo being transported is composed of guns and opium. One of the managers invites the worker who broke of the crate to join his cause (just like that other movie), who refuses on moral grounds. The manager orders his men to beat him up, and soon a full-scale riot on the docks is in force.

Dorian Tan shows up as Ah Tang, a scab who gets involved with the fighting on general principle. His prowess gets the attention of the leader of the overseers, Mr. Ko (Mang Chiu-Fan, repeating his role from Hero of the Waterfront), who hires him as an enforcer. Ah Tang doesn’t realize that his employers are the bad guys and that the weapons they’re shipping are going to be used against Chinese people back in the Mainland, and his inability to see this throughout most of the film’s running time makes him look like a dunce, rather than a misguided hero. In any case, we’re treated early on to a scene where the bad guys take him to a brothel and get him drunk, only for him to wake up in the bed of hooker (Woo Gam), not too unlike that other movie.

As the film progresses, the violence between dockworkers and their employers escalates into rape and murder, with Ah Tang showing up to beat people up almost at random. He later finds out that his cousin’s husband, Cheung (Wong Fei-Lung, more or less playing the James Tien character from The Big Boss), is the head of the striking laborers. Attempts to keep his employers from beating his family to death alienates Ah Tang from his cousin, and he eventually finds out from the prostitute just how corrupt they really are (just like that OTHER MOVIE). Ah Tang eventually assaults Mr. Ko at his own mansion (not too unlike Hero of the Waterfront) and then again on ship as it sails for the Mainland.

Wong Sing-Loy, best known in my book for his excretable Angry Young Man, unsuccessfully apes the Bruce Lee formula for this film, to the point that I’m surprised this isn’t officially considered a Brucesploitation entry. Tornado of Pearl River is arguably more “respectable” than its inspiration, what with less over exploitation elements and a more patriotic subtext to the proceedings, but the Wong’s overwrought melodrama during many of the non-fighting scenes and Han Ying-Chieh’s uninspired choreography whenever Tan Tao-Liang isn’t (wisely) choreographing himself (much like Bruce Lee in The Big Boss) just kills the movie.

This ranks up with the finale to The Himalayan as Tan Tao-Liang’s best showcase film. He kicks with great aplomb here, and I wonder why so many Taiwanese choreographers later in his career were at a loss on how to exhibit his obvious skills. This film introduces his famous “hop kicking,” where Tan hops on one leg while side-kicking at various heights (mainly at chest and head level). He uses A LOT more jumping spin kicks and jumping hook kicks than he does in his other movies. Tan also had a tendency to kick exclusively with his left leg in his movies, but here he exercises both feet fairly equally. While none of the fights rank as individual classics, there’s enough good stuff on display to consider this a classic kicking movie.