Dr. Wei in the Scripture with No Words (1996)

Dr. Wei in the Scripture with No Words (1996)

aka: Dr. Wai in "The Scripture with No Words"; The Scripture With No Words

Chinese Title: 冒險王

Translation: Adventure King

Starring: Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, Ngai Sing, Billy Chow,

Directed: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

Action Directors: Tony Ching Siu-Tung, Ma Yuk-Sing

Ching Siu-Tung. That name evokes mixed emotions from me. On one hand, he's considered to be one of the best fight directors to come out of Hong Kong and it's easy to see why. Anyone who's seen his Hong Kong movies know that they're filled to the brim with inventive and stylish (not to mention incredibly wire-enhanced) action sequences. On the other hand, I often feel like he allows his creativity to get out of hand to the point that many of his movies are never tour-de-forces for the talent that works with him. I felt that way after having watched The Heroic Trio and Swordsman II. His style can be described as being "balletic" in nature, as he specializes in swordfights, usually done with a lot of running, twirling, jumping, and a constantly moving camera. The effect is very beautiful, but his action scenes are rarely the good ol' fashioned beating that Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan have brought us for years.

In 1996 he teamed up with Jet Li for their second collaboration, Dr. Wei in the Scripture with No Words. The film, like Swordsman II, is without a doubt more of Ching Siu-Tung's film rather than Jet Li's film. That doesn't seem to matter, since it's an incredibly entertaining ride, even though a lot of people consider to be one of Li's lesser efforts.

The movie uses the "story-within-a-story" premise, much like The Neverending Story. However, Wolfgang Peterson's film never had wire-fu in it, but that's another story. For simplicity's sake, I'll go over the details of the human story and then Dr. Wei's story separately. Jet Li plays Chow Si-Kit, an author of a famous story series called "The King of Adventurers." However, these days, Kit has reached a point of almost incurable writer's block. Turns out that his wife Monica (Rosamund Kwan, of Once Upon a Time in China 2 and The Magic Crane) is wanting to divorce him. As much as Kit's assistants (Hero's Takeshi Kaneshiro and New Police Story's Charlie Yeung) try to console him, he just doesn't have anymore ideas.

One night Kit gets drunk and his spying assistants decide to bring him to his office to sleep it off. While he's passed out, the two decide to write his story adding their own little touches to it. When he gets sober, he adds to what his colleagues have written, but instead puts his own twists into the story. The rest of human side of the story involves an elevator accident and everyone at the hospital taking turns writing the adventure, with Monica finishing the story off.

The volume of "The King of Adventurers" that we get to watch tells the story of the search for "The Scripture with No Words." It begins with Dr. Wei (Jet Li playing Kit's alter-ego) and his assistant (Takeshi Kaneshiro playing himself) saving a bunch of slaves from a giant mechanical ox. I'm not sure who came up that idea. Maybe someone said, "Let's put this scene in the movie so can we can say, 'This film features Jet Li scaling a giant mechanical ox!'"

After that bizarre adventure, Dr. Wei is commissioned by a top Chinese official to get a hold of a magical box that contains the scripture with no words. He is informed that the information regarding its whereabouts are being held by the Japanese at the consulate. With the help of a drunken crime boss friend of theirs, Jet and Shing get into a party at the consulate by dressing in drag(!). Now you may find that weird, but Jet Li had already dressed in drag twice before that in Kids from Shaolin and Martial Arts from Shaolin.

After getting in, Dr. Wei and Shing manage to find the safe where the documents are located and escape, but not before having to take on fighting Billy Chow (who plays a Japanese general in an obvious nod to his role in Fist of Legend) and some Japanese guards in a fight involving excessive undercranking, a pen, and flying sheets of paper. He also flirts with a Japanese waitress named Cammy (also Rosamund Kwan) before high-tailing it.

Dr. Wei and Shing are about to deliver the documents to the official, but the meeting is broken up when the Japanese arrive and start throwing poison gas at the crowds. During the ruckus, Dr. Wei rescues Cammy from the gas and escapes on a train, which ends up going haywire and crashing through multiple buildings before stopping. I will make note at this moment that this film has about as much property damage as a typical Godzilla film. Similar to most of his films, when a character gets hit or kicked, there's a high probability that he/she will fly several yards back before hitting a wall and destroying it at the same time.

With the official dead, Dr. Wei and Shing begin to search for the box themselves. The documents point them in the direction of a newspaper. I guess this newspaper isn't very well-liked, as not only does it have barb wire and sand bags protecting the front of it, but people are constantly trying to assassinate the editor and burn the place down. Dr. Wei and Shing get themselves hired as security guards there. It turns out that the box is indeed being kept there, although it's being guarded by the editor, who likes to walk around with a cape and a basket on his head.

The Japanese, wanting to get the box, desire to hire a bandit named Hung Sing (Collin Chou, of Bodyguard from Beijing and Flashpoint), who's in charge of the Salt Gang, the same group of people that tried to steal the box a century before. Hung Sing and his gang raid the newspaper but the journalists all escape with baskets on their heads, trying to confuse the bad guys. During the fracas, Dr. Wei and the editor take on Hung Sing while Shing is captured by the Japanese.

Shing is taken to the Japanese HQ, where they try to execute him using poison gas. Dr. Wei arrives to save him, but soon discovers that General Chow and his army of ninjas and sumo wrestlers won't let them get away quite so easily(!)

Now, it is a proven fact that Ching Siu-Tung likes ninjas. I mean, what self-respecting martial arts film fanatic doesn't? Ching's first film, Duel to the Death featured ninjas prominently. Ninjas also were an integral part of the second two installments of the Swordsman films. Ninjas, or armed guys dressed up as ninjas are an integral part of the Ching Siu-Tung experience. Another reviewer of B-movies and I once agreed that Ching Siu-Tung must've been influenced by Japanese fantasy films like The Magic Serpent which featured ninjas doing crazy things. Whether or not that's true, I don't know.

Meanwhile, back at the ominous tower somewhere, Hung Sing and Cammy are fighting the editor for control of the box. By the end of the scuffle, Hung Sing is transformed into a monster, the editor is killed, and Cammy gets away with the box. Will she and the Japanese make it to the Great Wall and find the scripture with no words? Will Dr. Wei be able to stop them? Will Ching Siu-Tung come up with other crazy ideas for action scenes?

Most people will call this a low-grade rip-off of a certain film starring Harrison Ford that whose name we won't mention. It's true, as both films are epic adventures dealing with mystical artifacts and both are set during the pre-WWII times. However, the general direction of the two films is decidedly different, as this film tends to be more of a near-parody of both adventure and Hong Kong action films. Not only that, the film covers a whole lot of ground in less than 90 minutes, so the overall pace of the movie is quite fast. There's little to no time used focusing on close-up camera shots of Jet Li in a pensive stare. Oh no, that would detract from the time we need for everyone to break the laws of physics as we know them.

What I found unique about the movie is how all the characters of the story are based off the perceptions that the authors have of one another. Hence, Monica goes from a love interest to a sadistic villainess and back again as the film progresses. The main villains of the story are in fact, people that Chow dislikes in the real world. The entire story is based on elements and people from the real world (i.e. Chow's idea box in reality becomes the sacred box of the story). The fact that the fantasy portion of the film is actually a visualization of a written story, it allows Ching to work his wire-fu magic without having to really explain "Why are they doing that?" Simply put, it's pure fantasy.

As far as the cast goes, the film is in good shape. Jet Li's portrayal of Dr. Wei is quite likeable, a nice step away from his usual "stoic hero" persona. His character brings to mind his performances from Kids from Shaolin and The Master. Rosamund Kwan is as beautiful as always. Ngai Sing once again takes the role as a bad guy (he's been a bad guy in FIVE other Jet Li movies), a villain so scary that he says his name twice (Hung Hung Sing Sing) so people will always be scared of him. Helping out the cast, at least in the subtitled version of this film, are the most inept and unintentionally funny subtitles that I've read. Stuff like "He is jealousing" and "I was hoping to cut down on fight scenes", among others just enhances the tone of the movie.

However, more important than the cast and story are the film's action scenes. I feel the same way about them that I feel with a lot of Ching's fight scenes: way too short. I often feel that a lot of his action sequences end before they begin, with few exceptions. In any case, this movie is as good a showcase for his wild imagination as any. I've mentioned two of the fight scenes already. There's another fight scene that involves a horse and carriage, a chain, a gun, a pen, an umbrella, and a puddle of water. As for the finale, let's just say that Ching Siu-Tung was channeling his inner George Lucas when he choreographed it. One thing that pleased me with this movie were a few fight scenes where Jet Li gets to show of some really fancy non-wire kicks. But other than that, it's business as usual. I may note however, that this film was nominated for Best Action Design in 1996 (another Jet Li film, Black Mask was nominated that same year) but lost to Jackie Chan's First Strike.

One guy that reviewed this movie said it was the best collection of special FX ever for a Hong Kong film. Now, granted this was said in 1996 before The Stormriders revolutionized the fantasy genre. There are a lot of special FX in this one: bullet-time shots, CGI shots of people disintegrating, the giant mechanical ox, in addition to the usual property destroying mayhem and wire-assisted martial arts. It's not necessarily great by Western standards, but the fact that the film never takes itself seriously ameliorates that problem.

On the whole, I really liked the movie. I really enjoyed the storyline and identified a lot with Kit's and Dr. Wei's characters, as I myself have written short stories (or at least summaries of short story ideas) and have put in as characters people I know. I liked the fight scenes, which were creative but also allowed Jet Li to do some impressive moves by himself. While this isn't Jet Li's film, it's certainly Tony Ching's film and one of my favorite examples of the madness that he capable of portraying onscreen.

Appendix

The above review was originally written in 2004. The following year, I found the Brazilian VHS for a couple of bucks and lo and behold! It was the alternate version that leaves out the real world story and just focuses on the adventure. It was a nice treat; I didn't expect to see this version. I thought I'd comment on some of the changes (WARNING: Spoilers!!!).

1. Takeshi Kaneshiro's character narrates the movie as Dr. Wai's son.

2. Jet Li is called "Dr. Wai" in this version, as opposed to the Chinese version, in which everyone calls him Mo Him Wong, or "Adventure King".

3. The consulate scene is extended with sequence showing Takeshi Kaneshiro conversing with guard dogs to calm them down and Jet Li and Rosamund Kwan having a bathtub encounter (and to you perverts, nothing is revealed).

4. There is more conversation showed between Charlie Yeung's character and the Headmaster.

5. The runaway train scene was actually supposed to take place after Jet's first encounter with Ngai Sing. This scene shows Rosamund Kwan getting poisoned by Billy Chow and Takeshi Kaneshiro being captured by the Japanese.

6. The scene where Jet storms the Japanese headquarters is fleshed out as we see that he's seeking the antidote as well as trying to rescue Kaneshiro's character.

7. The finale is a little more downbeat. In the revelation scene at the very end, whereas Jet's character is shown his real life alter-ego alongside Rosamund Kwan in a vision, here we are shown footage of Hiroshima(!) and the characters learn that Japan loses the war. The mystical being than goes off into some sort of religious speech about God, brotherly love, unity, etc. This is driven in further by Kaneshiro's character's narration talking about the need to trust in God! I have question whether this dialogue was really there or if it was added by the Portuguese translators and dubbers. I can't imagine a Ching Siu-Tung movie (or any Chinese movie) having so preachy dialogue.

That about sums it up. The new footage makes the adventure a lot more coherent, although the pace still is pretty breakneck. It's not as clever as the original but it's a solid adventure (now I want to watch The Raid and see how they compare). Like I said, it's real treat to be able to watch this version and I recommend both versions to everyone. 

The Centipede Horror (1982)

The Centipede Horror (1982)
Chinese Title: 蜈蚣咒
Translation: Centipede Spell

Starring: Margaret Lee Din-Long, , Michael Miu Kiu-Wai, Stephen Yip Tin-Hang, Chan Fook-Choi, Hussein Hassan, Wang Lai, Yau Pui-Ling, Lau Tik-Fan, Amy Chan Suet-Min
Director: Keith Lee Pak-Ling

Centipedes are a species of arthropod that don't get a whole lot of love in Western genre cinema. I don't know why. They're fast; they have lots of legs moving at the same time; they're voracious predators capable of eating anything in their path, including small vertebrates; and they're venomous to boot. But the West has ignored them in favor of spiders (giant and normal-sized), scorpions, cockroaches, crabs, ants, and wasps. I think we got a glimpse of an oversized centipede in Peter Jackson's King Kong (when Naomi Watts is hiding inside a log), but that's about it.

The Chinese, however, have a greater appreciation for the animal. Perhaps it's because the creature has a greater role in its people's reality. There are at least two movies (Jet Li's Last Hero in China and Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee's Kid from Kwangtung) that feature a centipede dance, much like the more traditional Lion Dance and Dragon Dance. And let's not forget A Chinese Ghost Story II, which features a giant flying centipede at its climax. 

And then there's this film. I came into this film with high hopes. After all, Chinese cinema has famously been known for venturing so deep into the bizarre that almost anything else seems tame in comparison. They also refuse to "play by the rules" in terms of what to depict and who to kill. Chinese movies often benefit from a breakneck pace, which foregoes tension-building in favor of throwing as much at you as the filmmakers can imagine. 

A rich young woman (Yau Pui-Ling, of By Hook or By Crook) goes to SE Asia (presumably Thailand) with some friends against the wishes of her mother. Apparently the woman's grandfather had warned the family to never visit that region. The woman is attacked in the sticks by a legion of centipedes and is hospitalized. The woman experiences extreme necrosis from her wounds and eventually succumbs to them (although the fact that centipedes pour out of the oozing wounds upon her death let us know that SOMETHING IS UP). Her brother (Michael Miu Kiu-Wai, of Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars and The Dragon Family), who had flown to Thailand just in time to see his sister die, starts investigating his family's background to find out why his grandfather wanted his kin to stay the heck away from SE Asia. And *that* will ultimately the brother in harm's way.

First things first: I like how Western movies portray the backwoods of Thailand as a hot spot for old muay thai masters, while the Chinese think of the place as crawling with black magic sorcerers.

So, is this film weird, bizarre and transgressive? Yes and no. It feels pretty standard until the last act, which gives us a White magic exorcism and a duel between black and White magic sorcerers (Hussein Hassan and Shaw Brothers veteran Stephen Yip Tin-Hang) that includes reanimated chicken skeletons, plus a few nasty images to close out the film. The way the villain meets his maker is especially strange, although it sort of makes sense with the film's internal logic. Beware of magic talismans bathed in snake venom. 

The most transgressive moment come during a flashback sequence which explains why the grandpa had made the cryptic warning to his family. I find it hard to see Hollywood doing the same thing in a movie.

The finale is basically the Chinese version of the "They're Creeping Up On You" segment from Creepshow, but with centipedes. People who get the heevy-jeevies just by looking at creepy crawlers should love this part.

What about the pace? The film starts out good, but bogs down a lot in the second act when the main character starts his investigation. The only weirdness we see is a sorcerer curing a woman of a scorpion spell, with the help of his two pet ghosts (unlike the rest of the magic, the movie actually explains how that Works). It picks up again at the end, but a lot of the tension has dissipated by then. So what should be frightening and disturbing is mainly just weird and gross.

Part of the reason the second act bogs down is because of the sketchy way the magic is portrayed. The film is extremely ambiguous in just how much of the film's events are related to magic spells directed at the victim, and how much of it is an actual curse. If it were more explicitly the latter, than the film might have held a little more tension during the second act, since we would know that the hero is racing against time to solve the mystery and save himself. The nature of the spells and how they function is left to our imagination, and that's okay. But how the hero had encounters with centipedes and visions of kids in red before he went back to Thailand is never explained and eventually forgotten. Were they bad omens? Were they part of a curse? Is it karma? We never find out and it ends up hurting the film.

In his Asian Cult Cinema, author Thomas Weisser described this movie, especially the end, as being a cinematic endurance test. I never felt that, although people with low tolerance for many-legged creatures may feel differently. To me, it was a pedestrian horror film with a few weird, memorable, and even gross moments.

Short reviews of Simon Yuen Siu-Tin Films

Ol' Dirty Kung Fu (1979) 
aka Drunken Master, Slippery Snake; Mad Mad Kung Fu
Chinese Title: 怪招軟皮蛇
Translation: Strange trick, soft-skinned snake

Starring: Cliff Lok, Peter Chan Lung, Lee Hoi-Sang, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Chiang Tao, Cheung Hei, Cheng Kang-Yeh, Wang Han-Chen
Director: Ho Meng-Hua, Yu Cheng-Chun
Action Director: Chin Yuet-Sang

One of dozens of films that were produced in the wake of Jackie Chan's success with his Yuen Woo-Ping collaborations, this one ranks on the lower end of "average" on the quality spectrum. The film is little more than a shoddy reproduction of sight gags and set pieces from both Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, with an even *less* coherent plot than the latter. Simon Yuen Siu-Tin plays Sam See...I mean Beggar So...I mean Bamboo Stick, a powerful kung fu beggar. He saves the daughter of some family from a forced marriage to the local rich kung fu master's son (said master is played by Lee Hoi-San of The Magnificent Butcher) by beating him up and killing him via a mahjong title embedded in the forehead. The rich kung fu master vows revenge, taking his anger out on Bamboo Stick's student (Peter Chan), who works for an escort service. The student is framed for the theft of an important jade ring, and goes on the lam with a laborer (Cliff Lok). They spend the better part of an hour getting into random fights before the rich kung fu master catches up to them...

Some of the fighting, notably those that involve Lee Hoi-san, is pretty good, but nothing special compared to other kung fu comedies of the era. The mandatory training sequences in this are so short and perfunctory that I wonder why they were even included in the first place. I mean, other than justifying one of the film's titles, Cliff Lok wriggling under a bunch of benches doesn't really make much difference in both his fighting style or in the film's entertainment value. Considering that producer Ng See-Yuen had wanted Cliff Lok for the lead role in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, this film stands as a glimpse into how *that* movie would've turned out had Yuen Woo-Ping had not convinced him to cast Jackie Chan instead. Yuen Woo-Ping made the right decision.

Iron Bridge Kung Fu (1979)
aka Mean Drunken Master 
Chinese title: 莽漢鬥老千
Translation: Reckless Fighting Lao Qian

Starring: Wang Kuan-Hsiung, Chin Feng-Ling, Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Miao Tian, Tu Kuei-Hua,Shih Chung-Tien
Director: Wong Fung
Action Director: Wang Tai-Lang

Z-grade Drunken Master clone, this time focusing on another one of Wong Fei-Hung's contemporaries, Iron Bridge Sam. A bunch of evil fighters led by Dragon Head (Miao Tian) are gathered and sent to recover a jade watermelon, which a foreign collector is offering a handsome price for. The object is tracked to a town where Lung San (Wong Goo-Hung, of Swift Shaolin Boxer and The Lady Constables) works as a kung fu master's assistant. The evil kung fu fighters think that the watermelon is with the master's currest guest and a series of fights break out. Lung San is taught the Iron Bridge technique by a beggar (Simon Yuen) and fights the bad guys.

One problem with this film is a severe lack of focus. The movie can't decide who the main character is: Iron Bridge Sam or his female comic foil, 13 Points (Ape Girl's Gam Fung-Ling). Iron Bridge Sam has practically nothing to do during the first half hour, and even once the training sequences start halfway through, the film sort of forgets about him and Simon Yuen's beggar character, focusing on 13 Points' training with a female beggar, who turns out to be her mother. After almost 20 minutes ofscreen, Iron Bridge Sam finally returns to search for justice. It probably doesn't help that Wong Goo Hung, who's been better in other movies, is completely devoid of personality in this film. I guess this sort of role was better suited for a Jackie Chan type, as he's too serious and gets steamrolled into the background by Gam Fung-Ling's sassy personality.

Problems in the script and acting are further compounded by Wang Tai-Lung's lackluster action direction. I shouldn't expect much from the guy whose career highlight was Hsu Feng's Chase Step by Step, but man. The fights are stingy in both quantity, duration and just overall execution. Simon Yuen doesn't do any fighting, not even with a stunt double. Everyone else is just kind of bland. It all culminates in an extremely underwhelming final fight where the villains are defeated in a surprisingly easy manner. So yeah, there's no real reason to watch this turkey.

Ol' Dirty and the Bastard (1981) 
aka An Old Kung Fu Master
Chinese Title: 一老一少一根釘
Translation: One old and one young nail

Starring: Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Charles Heung Wah-Keung, Cecilia Wong Hang-Sau, Yuen Lung-Kui, Thompson Kao Kang, Chow Siu-Loi, Sai Gwa-Pau
Director: Gwan Jing-Leung
Action Director: Simon Yuen Siu-Tin, Chow Sam, Chow Siu-Loi

Another grade-Z post-Drunken Master comedy and one of Simon Yuen Siu-Tin's very last films. I'm assuming it was released some time after his death. Charles Heung plays a guy who's studying under an old kung fu master (ha!), the latter of whom goes into hiding to recover from a fight he had some time before. He leaves Heung in charge of his niece (or nephew? the subtitles were wonky) and Heung takes the kid across the countryside to his home. At the same time, an old kung fu master (ha!) played Simon Yuen is leaving the house of the rich guy whose son (Yuen Lung-Kui, a lesser-known son of Yuen who was in Story of the Drunken Master) he'd been teaching, because he doesn't want to marry the kid's aunt (played by an man in drag with a head so big you'd think he was a bobble head). Meanwhile, the evil Lo Har (Thompson Kao) sends his men to Heung's house to kill his parents and kidnap his sisters (one of whom is Cecelia Wong) because he wants to marry one of them. They are rescued by the two Yuens, who eventually meet up with Heung and the kid. Simon Yuen teaches Heung a secret style and they all team up to defeat Lo Har.

Unless you're the staunchest of Simon Yuen completists (that must be a very small fraction of an already niche group), there's no real reason to watch this. The plot doesn't make sense. The characters barely register as one dimensional. The villain has no personality, nor does he have character, motives, or backstory. The action is generally uninspired until the final reel, in which it barely reaches "decent" levels. Charles Heung looks good  in his fights--he shows some crisp techniques--but is let down by the choreographers, which included Simon Yuen and Chow Siu-Lui, who hadn't a choreographed a film since 1960 when he did this. Simon Yuen does a bit more fighting without doubles than usual, at least until the finale, when his character starts doing more acrobatics. But yeah, just not very interesting or worth watching.

Flying Dagger (1993)

Flying Dagger (1993)
Chinese Title: 神經刀與飛天貓
Translation: Nervous Knife and the Flying Cat

Starring: Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Jimmy Lin Zhi-Ying, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Sharla Cheung Man, Gloria Yip Wan-Yee, Ng Man-Tat, Chen Hung-Lieh, Kingdom Yuen King-Tan, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Lo Lieh, Lee Ka-Ting, Pauline Chan Bo-Lin, David Wu Dai-Wai
Director: Kevin Chu Yen-Ping
Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung, Ma Yuk-Sing, Dion Lam

Ah, yes. Chu Yen-Ping. If Wong Jing is the king of cinematic nonsense and crap in Hong Kong, Chu Yen-Ping is his second-in-command. Chu will forever be known by Hong Kong fans as "the father of Chinese Nazi movies" with Fantasy Mission Force, which strangely enough featured Jackie Chan in a supporting role. He proceeded to make two more movies with evil Chinese Nazis before continuing on to other films. He also was a pioneer in the "Kung Fu Kid" sub-genre, with series like Young Dragons: Kung Fu Kids and the Shaolin Popeye movies. I must note here that Shaolin Popeye 2: Messy Temple, has a scene where a 10-year old kung fu kid drinks milk from a woman's breast and starts performing the drunken style(!).

This one of the movies he made during the Hong Kong "New Wave" of wire-fu films in the early 1990s. I thought this was going to be parody of the genre, although it's not quite that. I think The Eagle Shooting Heroes comes closer to a parody than this one. However, this one really isn't that bad; it's actually better than I was expecting.

The movie is about two groups of bounty hunters hunting a thief and his consort. The first group is Big Dagger (Tony Leung Ka-Fei, of Dragon Inn and Bodyguards and Assassins) and Little Dagger (Butterfly and Sword's Jimmy Lin), the second group consists of Big Bewitchment (Cheung Man, of Cheetah on Fire and Kung Fu Cult Master) and Little Bewitchment (Gloria Yip, of Riki-Oh and The Peacock King). They're rivals, but they secretly like each other. The thief they're after is Nine-Tailed Fox (High Risk's Jackie Cheung) and his consort, played by Hero's Maggie Cheung. That's the general idea of the plot, although there are enough supporting characters, including rival bounty hunters and evil Ming officials, to keep things moving at a good clip.

This movie once was available at Blockbuster Video, strangely enough. The film's distributor also got copies of The Undaunted Wudang; Golden Dart Hero; and Slave of the Sword (a soft-core swordplay movie directed by Mr. Chu himself) into Blockbuster. Two obscure Mainland China martial arts films and two "different" entries in the New Wave subgenre, that's pretty impressive for Blockbuster. Too bad they started sucking after they switched over to DVD.

So the movie is pretty screwy. There's gay swordsman who sings in English (bear in mind this film takes place in the Ming Dynasty), a disembodied hand who's basically Thing from "The Addams Family" transplanted to ancient China, a villain named Die Quickly (who dies after one hit), a villain named Die Hard, another villain named Never Die, a poison that kills you unless you have sex, and a crazy lecherous eunuch. How does that last one work? Well, the fellow's mannerisms suggest that what you can't do with Big Willie, you make up for with some crazy tongue action.

All of this stuff might make this film a tough sell, but thankfully there's a crazy over-the-top wire-fu action set-piece every 10 minutes. The sword fights are choreographed by Ching Siu-Tung (A Chinese Ghost Story and The Blacksheep Affair), Ma Yuk-Sing (Ching's protégé, who did solo work in Fist Power and The Storm Warriors), and Dion Lam (Spider-Man 2 and A Man Called Hero). If you've seen any of Ching's films from the 1990s, you'll know what to expect: qi attacks, lots of people flying on wires, fabrics being used as weapons, objects flying on wires, swords, spinning and twirling, and very little actual martial arts. I enjoyed the action sequences, although they don't quite match up with those that Ching did in Butterfly and Sword (which Chu Yen-Ping incidentally produced).

Yeah, if you can stomach the strange humor, this is a pretty entertaining little film. I enjoyed watching these popular actors overact and make fools of themselves while flying around on wires. It's great time for everyone!

 

The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious (1976)

The Hot, The Cool and the Vicious (1976)
Chinese Title: 南拳北腿活閻王
Translation: Southern Fist, Northern Leg and Living Hades

Starring: Don Wong Tao, Tan Tao-Liang, Tommy Lee (Gam Ming), George Wang, Sun Chia-Lin, Wan Chung-San, Yeo Su-Jin, Wan Lei
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Tommy Lee (Gam Ming), Lung Fong

Despite the success around Asia that Secret Rivals enjoyed, the creative team didn’t last. Upset that director Ng See-Yuen had gone back on his word to make him the sole protagonist, Wong Tao left Seasonal Films and took fight choreographer Tommy Lee with him. This turned out to be a smart move on Wong’s part, as his return to his native Taiwan paid off and the man became one of the most important leading men in martial arts films for the rest of the decade. Likewise, Tommy Lee set the standard for Taiwanese fight choreography until the early 80s, when he retired from filmmaking. 

Whatever uncertainty the men may have felt after heading to Taiwan was probably allayed by their teaming up with Lee Tso-Nam. Lee has since become known as one of the most important martial arts directors in all of Asia. He’d worked on a handful of movies in the first half of the 1970s, and had found considerable international success that same year with the Brucesploitation film Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger. Interestingly enough, the first collaboration of Don and Tommy with their new director was a variation on Secret Rivals, the very film that had jumpstarted Wong Tao’s career. Instead of John Liu, Wong’s co-star would be Liu’s own teacher, Dorian Tan Tao-Liang. With that sort of talent—two tae kwon do champions, a seasoned fight choreographer, a successful director—it’s little wonder that the resulting film turned out to be better than its inspiration in a number of regards.

Tan Tao-Liang plays Captain Lu Tung-Chun, head of the “security force” of a small village during China’s Republic Era sometime after 1911. The place is run by Mr. Yuen (George Wang, the film’s producer and  Don Wong Tao’s dad), the richest man in town and Lu’s benefactor. Although Lu is doing a good job of maintaining order in those parts, a conflict of interests arises when Mr. Yuen’s wastrel son (Wang Chun-Shan, of Dragon Inn and Moonlight Sword and Jade Lion) tries to rape Lu’s fiancée (Wan Lei) and ends of killing her mother. Although neither Yuen Jr. nor his flunkies are any match for Lu and his kicking skills, he at least has daddy and his money to keep him hidden until it all blows over.

Enter Southern Fist Bai Yu Ching (Don Wong Tao, of Secret Rivals and Iron Swallow), an infamous fighter who’s just gotten out of the slammer for murder. Although Bai claims to be just passing through, Mr. Yuen seizes the opportunity to hire some extra muscle to deal with Lu. This is especially important once Mr. Yuen strips Lu of his rank and the latter refuses to leave town. But Bai Yu Ching isn’t interested in killing a local lawman; he has other motives, motives which involve some curiosity about his new boss’s dealings. And just who is this “Mr. Lung” that Yuen and his men always talk about?

In addition to having a title that sounds like a play on the Sergio Leone classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, this movie feels very Spaghetti Western in terms of the plot and storytelling. You could replace the kung fu with six-shooters and you’d a classic old west tale: a cattle baron controls the town; his son or nephew commits a dastardly crime like rape; the local sheriff wants to bring him in; the cattle baron’s men are no match for the sheriff so he hires a mysterious gunslinger to deal with him; said gunslinger has his own agenda; etc. While we’re perfectly fine with rival kung fu styles, rebel name lists, evil opium dealers, and evil Japanese occupiers, the plot to The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious feels like it could happen in real life. It’s far more grounded in reality—at least a reality whose internal logic reflects our own—than most kung fu movies, which is indeed refreshing.

A good story with equally-solid storytelling is buoyed by a strong cast. Don Wong Tao is not only a great martial artist, he’s a good actor. He’s one of the more charismatic male leads to highlight Taiwanese kung fu cinema, and his jumps between happy-go-lucky and determined do-gooder are believable. Tan Tao-Liang is far more limited as an actor, but “unwaveringly righteous” falls well within Tan’s range. Both men receive ample support from the other characters: Yeo Su-Jin, who played the Korean love interest in Secret Rivals, plays the seductive inn owner who may be hiding a secret or two; Sun Jia-Lin (Against the Drunken Cat’s Paws) as a woman with a bone to pick with Captain Lu; George Wang is the scheming Mr. Yuen. On top of that, we have Tommy Lee as Mr. Lung, our protagonists’ final opponent. Tommy Lee is no Hwang Jang Lee and Tommy knows not to try to be him. Instead of trying to out-kick the Silver Fox, he out-quirks him, portraying the final boss as an albino hunchback with a gimp leg and a particularly powerful Mantis fist.

Tommy Lee’s choreography is also a lot more grounded, save a handful of superhuman leaps which were unavoidable in kung fu movies in 1976. Lee opts not to speed up the footage, something that even Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung did a little in their best films. This gives the action a further sense of realism. The bulk of the fighting is hand-to-hand—one vs. many, one vs. one, two vs. one—with the only weapons being used being a couple of sticks and knives here and there. I feel like Tommy Lee had matured as a choreographer after working on Secret Rivals and the two-on-one choreography of the finale is a lot more complex, if less manic, than the Wong Tao and John Liu facing off against Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee in that film.

Don Wong Tao’s original martial arts training was in tae kwon do, and he started training in hung gar under Tommy Lee’s tutelage. Both styles are worlds apart: tae kwon do emphasizes fancy footwork and high stances, while hung gar is all about the handwork, low stances and animal forms. Watching Secret Rivals, you can tell that Wong Tao’s hung gar skills were still nascent and that he often fell back on his original tae kwon do training in his fights. In the months that elapsed between finishing Secret Rivals and filming The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious, Wong had progressed quite handily in his hung gar training. He uses the low stances and tiger claw strikes without any of the kicking flourishes he used before. Very impressive for what amounted to a year’s worth of training.

Tan Tao-Liang is his usual dependable self. His bootwork doesn’t reach the intensity of his Sammo-choreographed efforts from that yeah, but he still kicks high and kicks often. Although Tan tends to focus on his left left for his usual roundhouse, spinning and side kicks, he does manage to balance it with a fair amount of bootwork from his right leg, too. He does a few jumping kicks here, too. Both he and Don Wong Tao are ultimately shown up by Tommy Lee as the physically-disabled villain. Lee is a maniac with the mantis style and even gets in a few impressive aerial kicks, too. At one point, Lee fights with a blade hidden in his sleeve, much like how Lam Ching-Ying would do three years later in The Magnificent Butcher. And any movie in which the albino hunchback villain with a bum leg can convincingly hold his own in a seven-minute battle royale with two tae kwon do champions in bound to achieve some degree of classic status.

Lam Moon Wah: A Career in Crime

Lam Moon Wah: A Career in Crime 

by Blake Matthews

The crime drama has long been a fixture of cinema. It has taken many forms, from the silent Fantomas films coming out of France to the American film noir and Italian poliziesco. Movies have been made in numerous countries glorifying and mythifying organized crime, while others have deconstructed the genre and sought to show us the squalor and sleaze behind the racketeering. Many a classic has sought to show us the world criminals live in. Hollywood has given us everything from Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather series to Brian De Palma's The Untouchables and Michael Mann's Heat. From Japan we've seen the stylish action outings of Takeshi Kitano, like Hana-Bi and Sonatine, to the Kinji Fukasaku's not-so-glamorous Battles Without Honor and Humanity films.

The Jade Screen has never been far behind in the crime film. After all, China has been home to the Tongs and the Triads. Funny about the latter, huh? What started out as underground patriot organizations hellbent on kicking the ruling Manchurians out of power and restoring Chinese rule to the Chinese themselves has now become one of the more famous collective groups of organized crime.

The 1980s saw the growth of the Triad and crime drama, much the way it saw the growth of the stunt-driven action film and the FX-heavy fantasy film. There have been a number of hallmark crime films made in Hong Kong, especially in the 1980s. The Long Arm of the Law told the story of Mainland crooks trying to pull off a job in Hong Kong, only for their plans to go wrong at every turn. John Woo built his own Triad world in the hugely popular and iconic A Better Tomorrow, in which Triads were honorable guys in trenchcoats and sunglasses who used guns against the more dishonorable members of their kind. But the first important Triad film of the era was the 1981 film The Club.

The story is extremely simple. A Triad running a popular club is looking to expand his repertoire into the field of real estate. When he refuses to sell his joint to some rivals (including old school kung fu star Philip Ko Fei), they have him brutally murdered instead. Unfortunately for them, their attempts to kill his lead enforcer, played by real-life Triad Michael Chan Wai-Man, are less successful.

What sets this movie apart from the others is the action and the approach to it. Lam Moon-Wah and Michael Chan seek to bring a sense of realism to the action that is often overlooked and ignored by filmmakers in exchange for sizzle and style. The movie opens with a series of monochrome scenes in which Michael Chan, Norman Tsui and Fong Yau fight their way to the top of the local Triad territory. Instead of lengthy gunfights in warehouses and piers performed by Asian men in suits, we have guys in regular clothes getting in violent knife fights on basketball courts and inside cramped apartments. People are tackled, kicks rarely go above belt level, and punches are not crisp demonstrations of martial handwork, but Mississippi haymakers thrown with manic intensity. Michael Chan was not only a trained martial artist, but he'd had experience as a boxer (presumably a kickboxer) and had gotten involved in many Triad melees over the years. So even if the moves on display aren't as well-executed and flowery as one might see in a Sammo Hung or Jackie Chan movie, they give a better idea of what it would have like to participate in a Triad brawl circa 1981.

The action calms down after the opening series of brawls, only to start up again after the 50-minute mark. That leads us to the finale, which was once chosen by the now-defunct website Wasted Life as being one of the 100 greatest fight scenes of all time. In a sequence reminiscent of Japanese chambara films (and would be redone to much bloodier effect in Wang Lung-Wei's Hong Kong Godfather), Michael Chan storms the rival Triad's club armed with a long tanto dagger and proceeds to hack every single thug present to ribbons. He is soon joined by Norman Tsui, who would also like to settle the score for the death of his former Triad brother. The two punch, kick, slash and stab their way through everybody present until there's nobody left. Lam Moon-Wah avoids unnecessary stylishness for the most part, save a few nimble jump moves from Michael Chan. The flowery and balletic exchanges we have become accustomed to seeing in Chinese swordplay films is ditched in favor of a more direct and violent approach: the faster you are, the more likely you'll be able to slash the guy in front of you before he does the same. If you fall on the ground, chances are someone will tackle you and plunge a knife in your chest before you get a chance to get up. Unlike many of the Triad brawls that Lam would direct in his career, this sequence benefits from revolving entirely around two people. The choreography is thus less chaotic and more focused. This goes up there with the finale to Vengeance!, the finale to Sword of Swords and the Donnie Yen/Wu Jing showdown in SPL as one of the great knife fights in cinematic history.

The Club was Lam Moon-Wah's fourth film as action director, having only worked on three traditional kung fu movies before. His work on Killer of Snake, Fox of Shaolin was boring and lamentable, giving us one of the more lackluster displays of Carter Wong's skills. Lam had fared much better in Kung Fu Master Called Drunk Cat, where, working as assistant action director, he helped milk John Chang and Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan's skills for all they were worth. He also did a more-than respectable job on Story of the Drunken Master, although the uninterested direction and badly-writen script cast a negative shadow on the more-than-competent choreography. With The Club, Lam Moon-Wah reached an early peak in his work, which he would spend the rest of his career trying to live up to, but without much success. Lam was often the victim of low budgets, hurried shooting schedules, inept scripts, bland direction and what we might infer as being an inability to lift the material around him up to his level.

The first offender was Lam's immediate follow-up to The Club, the 1983 period piece/Triad/comedy caper, The Pier. In it, Philip Ko Fei and genre veteran Tien Feng play rival Triads involved in human trafficking, with Leung Kar-Yan as a bumbling cop trying to bring them down. Norman Tsui shows up as a good-for-nothing Casanova who comes into possession of a tape detailing one of the Triad's plans. The film spends most of its running time going absolutely nowhere and once the action does get started, it's too generic to leave anything resembling an impression. Norman Tsui gets to show off his athleticism for a few unremarkable fight scenes. The final Triad brawl is chaotic, with dozens of people swinging choppers and sticks at each other at the same time. There is some decent stuntwork in the form of people getting thrown through furniture, but let's face it: Jackie and Sammo did the same thing with a lot more spectacular results in Winners and Sinners and Project A, made the same year.

Just as bad, if only a little better, was the 1989 Chow Yun-Fat film Triads: The Inside Story. Despite the title and Chow Yun-Fat's fame for his bullet ballet films like the A Better Tomorrow films and Flaming Brothers, there's no two-fisted gunplay and heroic bloodshed to be seen here. That shouldn't be a problem in itself, but HK cinephiles expecting to see Chow do anything interesting at all will be sorely disappointed. The only action Chow sees is crashing a truck into a car at the very end. The rest of the action is made up of group battles involving choppers and blunt objects like hammers and metal bars, with the most impressive performance going to Michael Chan. There are some decent stunts, like Chan jumping from a window and onto a scaffolding, and then off the scaffolding to tackle an opponent. Also, there are at least two scenes in which someone running is broadsided by a moving car, which has got to hurt. Unfortunately, a dead script and the lack of a good climax, plus Chow Yun-Fat being removed from the action, just kills the film dead.

Much better was the following year's Unmatchable Match [1], starring a pre-fame Stephen Chow and once again, the always-dependable Michael Chan. Chow is an undercover cop who is thrown in the same jail cell as Chan, who's a suspect in a big diamond heist that was actually committed by Shing Fui-On (who also had a meaty role in Triads: The Inside Story). The escape and form an uneasy alliance, after which they become real friends. Lam Moon-Wah went the John Woo route for this movie, going more for the gunplay then the choppers this time around. There's a fight about midway through where Michael Chan fends off a number of thugs armed with choppers and wrenches at a car garage, so people wanting their fix of seeing stuntmen getting punched and kicked and thrown into car windows can look forward to that. The gunfights themselves never reach the level of a John Woo movie, but are fun enough. There's a tense chase sequence early on with Chow and Chan fleeing from Shing and his men through the narrow hallways of a building. In a touch of black humor, when the actors reach the roof, there are two other Triad gangs carrying out a drug deal. It ends in a gunfight that leaves everybody dead. The movie ends with a tense and well-mounted gunfight inside an abandoned building, with the heroes depending more on strategy and their surroundings rather than pumping countless rounds at their enemies.

Lam Moon-Wah reached the critical apex of his career the following year when working on Ringo Lam's Prison on Fire 2, which brought Lam his first and only Hong Kong Film Award nomination for Best Action Design. He would lose to Yuen Cheung-Yan, Yuen Shun-Yee and Lau Kar-Wing for their on Tsui Hark's epic Once Upon a Time in China, which really kicked off the wire-fu boom and helped turn Jet Li into an international action star. The ironic thing about this Chow Yun-Fat prison drama is that the action was rather generic. There are few fisticuff exchanges and scenes where people get stabbed with shanks made from toothbrushes, but nothing that Lam hadn't done better before or after and failed to get recognition for. The film is more an actor's movie, with Chow Yun-Fat and Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong putting in winning performances.

Don't Fool Me, a Triad comedy made the same year, could have been a good opportunity for Lam to lampoon the sort choreography that he had been doing since 1981. The story follows a Triad negotiator (Andy Lau), who switches places with an insurance salesman (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), after the latter finds out that he has a brain tumor. Fight action is relegated to a single scene early on where Lau gets the trash kicked out of him by Anthony Wong's bodyguard, played by Mainland wushu stylist Yau Gin-Gwok (South Shaolin Master). There's also a game of chicken played with cars between Tony Leung and Bruce Law, who would later go on to be the go-to guy for vehicular mayhem in Hong Kong cinema. In the end, it's a pleasant, but instantly forgettable timewaster. The most memorable scene is a jarringly violent scene where Tony Leung imagines his pregnant girlfriend getting her hands smashed at a casino, which doesn't belong at all in an otherwise goofy comedy.

One of Lam Moon-Wah's most successful movies, financially speaking, was 1992's Prince of Temple Street. Andy Lau plays a low-level Triad working on Temple Street, a collection of stalls and shops (with a few brothels and opium dens hidden from public view). When an old rival is released from jail, he finds his territory under attack. There are several chopper brawls to be seen here, one of which features a nice "oh cool!" moment where a motorcycle is broadsided by a car, which sends the driver flying, whom is then cut down mid-air by the main villain, played by Chin Ho. The second-to-last set piece features a lot of vehicular mayhem and random explosions, but little in the way of actual physical combat. That's reserved for the end, where Andy Lau infiltrates the Chin Ho's hideout and goes all out with the machete and drop-kicking moves. He then has a vicious one-on-one with Chin Ho, complete with throws, punches, take-downs, and surprisingly enough, some wire-assisted jump kicks, too. All of this inside a building that is already on fire! It's a shame that the movie waits so long to get moving. And much like The Club, the decision to focus the finale on just one person makes the action more satisfying the previous brawls, which don't stand out because so much is happening at once.

While certainly not the worst of Lam's choreography jobs (although he makes a lot of bad decisions here), the 1993 girls n' guns stinker Lady Super Cop is widely regarded as being among the worst of its ilk, which is saying A LOT. Carina Lau plays a career-oriented policewoman whose new team includes her cousin, played by Teresa Mo. Mo's character is a veteran cop who's more worried about selling gadgets to members of the force than catching crooks. That all changes when the boyfriend of one of Mo's informants is brutally murdered by a psychopath involved with some bank robbers. The main problem here is that Lau's character is pretty incompetent and unthreatening. I mean, the woman is incapable of chasing down a guy who's just gotten broadsided by a van (a recurring theme in Lam Moon-Wah's works)! To be honest, the police in the film are largely useless and spend more time getting fired on and beaten up than anything else. Early on there's a martial arts sequence between Teresa Mo and Lam regular Michael Chan, who plays Mo's mechanic neighbor. Both are dressed in kung fu student clothes and are wielding weapons. But instead of fighting, the camera just switches between the two in different poses like an anime fight. It's really stupid. The big set pieces occur in the last act, beginning with a violent gun battle at the girls' apartment. Watch for a game of Wack-a-Mole played with a pistol and some brief fight action from Michael Chan, who steals the scene. The finale is a big fight between Teresa Mo, Carina Lau and the main villain in which the women let themselves get whooped. I mean, what kind of girls n' guns film allows the female characters to get beaten down like that? The idea of the women dishing out the hardcore martial punishment is why HK cinephiles love the sub-genre to begin with! Bad move, guys.

Like any third-string choreography, Lam Moon-Wah found himself having to pay the bills with a myriad of mercenary projects. One of them was the softcore sex comedy Girls Unbutton (1994). In a completely random scene, actress Loletta Lee goes on a date with local extortion gang leader Elvis Tsui Kam Kong. While they are dining, some rivals arrive and start cutting up his men. After an improptu round of alleyway sex, Tsui takes on the rivals. The choreography, like The Club, is very chambara in its presentation, with single slashes and speed being the rule of the duel. The scene lasts about a minute and is promptly forgotten about for the rest of the film.

We end this article with the 1994 crime drama Gambling Baron. This is actually a decent movie about low-level Triads, played by Roy Cheung and Max Mok, running the local racket, only to run afoul of a rival, played by old school kung fu actor Jimmy Lee. The fight scenes aren't bad and Max Mok has enough action experience to sell himself as one of the more powerful and intimidating fighters in the territory. The highlight is a fight in a narrow construction area between Roy, Max, kickboxer Billy Chow and a bunch of stuntmen armed with metal bars and choppers. Billy Chow gets in the best moves with his high kicks. Roy, in all of his action sequences, looks gangly and uncoordinated, convincing only when he has a gun in his hand. This fight, surprisingly enough, ends with the heroes getting broadsided by a moving van! Who would have thought? The movie mainly falters in the finale, which tries to tie up all the loose ends in about 8 minutes. I'm guessing the filmmakers simply ran out of money by this point. Thus, instead of a big set piece where Max Mok dishes out the justice only a sharpened machete can, we have him standing still firing an AK-47 until everybody is dead. It's an unsatisfying way to end an otherwise satisfying crime flick.

So despite having reached dizzying heights of action direction accomplishment with The Club, none of Lam Moon Wah's later movies were quite able to reach that height. Some came close, others even received official recognition for whatever merits they possessed. But none them made the mark in Hong Kong cinema like that film did. That isn't to say that Lam never again worked on a great movie. His work on the Mainland kung fu film Young Hero of Shaolin 2 is one of the hallmarks of Mainland Wushu on film, sitting comfortably next to the likes of the Shaolin Temple films. He also directed the fight scenes to the underrated gem Hero of Swallow, one of the last wire-fu films of the 1990s and one of Yuen Biao's last great kung fu performances. Lam has since become inactive in the Hong Kong film industry, having worked on nothing since 2004. He may not have ever reached the heights of Sammo, Corey and the Yuens, but at least he can say that he did something important for Hong Kong cinephiles to remember him by. Lam Moon-Wah, we salute you!

[1] - This article was written in March of 2015. At the time, the HKMDB listed Lam Moon-Wah and Samo Wong as the action directors of Unmatchable Match. Sometime around 2020 and 2021, the page was altered and Lam Moon-Wah's name was removed from the HKMDB credits for that film..

Game of Death (1978)

Game of Death (1978)

 

Starring: Bruce Lee, Kim Tai Chung, Coleen Camp, Gig Young, Dean Jagger, Hugh O'Brien, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dan Inosanto, Sammo Hung 
Director: Robert Clouse 
Choreographer: Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung 

Early in the second half of 1972, Bruce Lee begun work on a project called Game of Death. The project was meant to be the ultimate expression of his jeet kune do style. The story would have followed the adventures of a retired martial arts champion whom the Korean underworld blackmails into entering a mysterious pagoda inhabited by different fighters in order to find an undisclosed treasure at the top level. Bruce Lee had filmed 100 minutes of footage—mainly three of the five planned fights inside the pagoda and, as shown in Bruce Lee, the Legend, some of the fights with pagoda’s outer guards. Filming was interrupted by Bruce Lee’s being invited to star in Enter the Dragon, and his plans to pick up filming afterward were permanently ended by his untimely death.

More than four years after his passing, producer Raymond Chow of Golden Harvest decided to shoot new footage and complete the film. He hired Robert Clouse, best known for directing the highly-successful Enter the Dragon, to helm the new scenes, which Clouse himself penned. A Korean tae kwon do expert, Kim Tai Chung, was hired to play Bruce Lee’s character, Billy Lo, in the new scenes. Chow and Clouse assembled a new cast of American actors, including Oscar winners Dean Jagger and Gig Young. The movie was a global hit, making about 43 million dollars, or a 170 million dollars adjusted for inflation. Today the finished film gets a lot of flack from genre fans, when in fact it is actually a very solid martial arts film. In fact, it's actually (take a deep breath here) one of my favorites. 

We open James Bond-esque opening title sequence, complete with an awesome theme from from 007 composer John Barry. We cut to a movie studio, where a fight scene being filmed. The fight is between Billy Lo (Bruce Lee and Kim Tai-Chung) and Chuck Norris (courtesy of Way of the Dragon stock footage). When the scene is finished, a light fixture falls from the rafters, almost hitting Billy. It's dimissed as an accident and Billy goes about his business. A mysterious man named Steiner (Hugh O'Brien, of Killer Force and The Shootist) pays Billy a visit in his dressing room. Steiner threatens Billy about not joining his outfit, known as “The Syndicate”, who responds by smacking Steiner in the face. 

Reporting back to his superior, the diabolical Dr. Land (Brigham Young himself, Dean Jagger), Steiner tells of Billy Lo's increasing resistance to their efforts to get him to join them. Suggesting that they "squeeze" him a little more, Steiner and his motorcycle-driving goons attack Billy and his singer girlfriend, Ann (Coleen Camp, who starred the previous year in Death Game). That evening, Billy and Ann have dinner with Jim Marshall (Gig Young, who did some karate chopping of his own in The Shuttered Room), Billy's journalist friend. Jim warns Billy about the Syndicate, and how  rebellious celebrities—or even those in a slump—often find themselves committing suicide against their will. 

 

“You lose, Carl Miller!”

The next day, Billy goes to see his uncle (A Touch of Zen’s Roy Chiao), a famous Peking Opera actor. Their meeting is interrupted by the appearance of the Syndicate, including Karl Miller (Robert Wall, of Enter the Dragon) and Pasqual (Chinese Stuntman’s Dan Inosanto). Billy manages to hold them off, but they eventually best him and leave him a final warning. When he doesn't call back, the Syndicate decides to make an example out of him. 

Billy realizes that there’s no way out and decides to finish his last movie before confronting them head on. He warns Ann to leave Hong Kong and go back to the USA, so she doesn't get caught in the cross-fire. On the set of his last movie (cue stock footage from Fist of Fury), Billy is shot in the face by a Syndicate hitman (Mel Novak, who shows up today in low-budget schlock like Ebola Rex and Samurai Cop 2) dressed as an extra. I find it interesting that this happens to Bruce Lee's character in this film and then his real-life son Brandon Lee was killed essentially the same way on the set of The Crow. Coincidence? What do you think? 

In any case, Billy Lo survives and revenge is now on the menu.

The story is nothing new, as we've seen Bruce Lee pushed over the edge before. Bruce Lee in reality only really comes into the movie for the climax. The Billy Lo for the majority of the film is played by Korean actor Kim Tai-Chung[1]. You can tell that they were trying to mask the fact it wasn't the real Little Dragon in most of the scenes. There are a lot camera shots from behind or shots of Kim in a fake beard and huge dark sunglasses. Once in a while, there are scenes of Bruce Lee looking at stuff from his other films spliced in here and there. The worst example of that is when Billy Lo is fighting Carl Miller in a locker room: Billy gets kicked in the head and we cut to Bruce Lee in a restaurant (from Way of the Dragon) getting slapped. The change of scenery is painfully obvious. Even more embarrassing is in the very beginning you can actually see an actual cut-and-paste job where the editors pasted Bruce Lee onto Kim Tai-Chung's form on the filmstock. Admittedly, it fooled me the first two times I saw this film back in middle school. Yeah, it's pretty bad, but wuddiagonnado?

Now the most important part about this film is the fight scenes. There are two choreographers: Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung. Bruce choreographed his own fight scenes, which include the stock footage at the beginning and the three major climatic duels. The first of these three has Bruce taking on Dan Inosanto with nunchaku and a bamboo cane. Inosanto is best known for being the one who taught Lee how to use the nunchaku. The two engage in a wild nunchaku swing-off after Inosanto’s escrima proves to be too rigid. Next, Bruce faces off with hapkido grandmaster Ji Han Jae (Fist of Unicorn) using his usual moves plus a lot of the jujitsu that Bruce Lee had incorporated into his Jeet Kune Do style. Hapkido as a style is known for its elaborate kicking, joint locks and throws. Master Ji mainly demonstrates the throws and grabs associated with his style. Finally, the final duel is between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Standing at seven-foot-two, the basketball legend was also student of Bruce’s and fights with jeet kune do, plus the advantage that his size gives him against a much-smaller opponent. These three fights[2] make up one of the greatest climatic sequences ever filmed. 

 

 

“Rude bitch.”

“One rebel begats another. It's the Billy Lo syndrome.”

“A venereal disease. Often terminal.”

 

As a Golden Harvest production, Raymond Chow had his top action director, Sammo Hung, choreograph the fight sequences for the new footage. Most people who are familiar with Asian cinema will know that Sammo Hung is THE greatest Bruce Lee impersonator in the business, which may come across as a surprise, as he weighs over 200 lbs. This title was earned through his work in Enter the Fat Dragon and Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon. Having done this film before either, you can see the beginnings of his talent in that regard. However, he proceeds to make Kim Tai-Chung look quite good. While not as good as Bruce Lee, he kicks great and manages to do the Bruce Lee-isms without going overboard. 

One observation I would like to make about the action is the portrayal of the Billy Lo character. Much like Steven Seagal, Bruce Lee tended to destroy all the bad guys that he fought in his films (setting aside the main villain). I remember my brother complaining that this film didn't make Bruce Lee out to be invincible. I'm glad for it. It's a nice change of pace. In all of the fight scenes, Billy Lo takes a couple of good hits. You know what? Excellent. It makes his character all the more human. 

It is also worth pointing out that this movie uses its talent well, especially Sammo Hung and Robert Wall. Prior to this film, Sammo Hung had a cameo in Enter the Dragon as Bruce Lee's opponent at the very beginning. Robert Wall was in both that and Way of the Dragon. In neither of these two movies were those actors given much of a showcase. Bruce Lee destroyed both of them with the greatest of easeThat is remedied here. . The greatest martial arts movies in my opinion are the ones that make the most of the talent involved. Wall is given two major fight scenes (one against Hung and one against Kim Tai-Chung), both of which show us that he actually knows martial arts (you wouldn't have guessed that from his role as O'Hara in Enter the Dragon). Hung also gets to show off some his fighting/acrobatic skills (in addition to his choreography talents) in his fight against Wall. Sure, he's done far better, but it's better than what Enter the Dragon did for him. 

“Get away from me, you bastard!”

Two of the men credited with the stuntwork are Bill Yuen and Mars. Mars was a regular from Jackie Chan's Hong Kong movies. Bill Yuen is better known as Yuen Biao, a long-time friend, collaborator, and co-student of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. In addition to the flips and somersaults that Yuen Biao does, he probably also did the two best moves of the movie. The first one is when Billy Lo does a back flip and kicks Robert Wall in the face. The second is the multiple "Chun Li" kicks that he performs in the same fight. That was the first time I ever saw those kicks, although it wouldn't be the last time. Donnie Yen has used those kicks in some of his movies, including the popular Iron Monkey, High Voltage, and his TV series The Kung Fu Master.  

Now the film's influence extends to even into the 21st century. The yellow jumpsuit that Billy Lo dons during the warehouse fight has become a Bruce Lee trademark. It was used in a few Brucesploitation films, including New Game of Death (1975) and Enter the Game of Death (1978). Pop-singer Jackie Cheung, playing a parody of Jackie Chan, wears it at the climax of the 1995 Jet Li film High Risk. Most famously, Uma Thurman donned the outfit for Quentin Tarantino's epic Kill Bill Vol. 1, which itself has been parodied numerous times, like in the cartoons Family Guy and Billy and Mandy.

In addition to the costume, Jackie Chan's endearingly goofy City Hunter (1993) paid homage to this film. In it, there's a scene where Jackie takes on a pair of seven-foot tall black men in a cruise ship's theatre and ends up taking some hints from Bruce Lee's fight with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which is playing in the background. Michelle Yeoh had a similar David-and-Goliath throwdown in Project S (1993), as did Yuen Biao in Don't Give a Damn (1995). Even in recent times, films like Legendary Assassin (2009) can trace their lineage back to this one through their David and Goliath fights.

“Where’s the doctah!!!!????”

In closing, if you want hot Hollywood actors performing movie fighting in front of a green screen, look somewhere else. If you want people flying around on wires looking pretty, this isn't your film. If you want a complex storyline revolving around well-developed characters, watch a Chiense wuxia TV series. If you want to see the best Bruce Lee fights, some good choreography from a young Sammo Hung, some good Bruce Lee impersonating, a young Sammo Hung in action, and an older Robert Wall in action, then this is the film for you. 

---

[1] - Kim Tai-Chung would continue the Brucesploitation angle throughout his career: he starred in this film’s sequel, Tower of Death (1981); the Korean chopsockey film Bruce and Jackie to the Rescue (1982); and he played the ghost of Bruce Lee in No Retreat, No Surrender (1986).

[2] - The documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey (2000) informs us that there had been two more fights planned. In one, Bruce would have thrown down with Korean hapkido Whang In-Sik. Whang, who fought Bruce in Way of the Dragon, would have played a kicking expert. The second unfilmed fight would have been with the late Taky Kimura, who was going to play a praying mantis stylist. One would assume that Bruce would have used the fights to decry flashy-but-ineffective kicks and the too-rigid traditional stances of Chinese kung fu, respectively.