The Dumb Ox (1974)

The Dumb Ox (1974)
Aka: Kung Fu Strongman; Return of the Panther
Chinese Title: 大鐵牛
Translation: Big Iron Bull

Starring: Kam Kong, Nancy Yen Nan-See, Lung Fei, Shan Mao, Addy Sung Gam-Loi, Ma Chi, Kwan Hung, Lei Jun, Tai Bo, Gam Ming, Wu Ma
Director: Wu Ma
Action Director: Leung Siu-Chung, Gam Ming (Tommy Lee)

Wu Ma as a director was a bit uneven in comparison to his colleagues like Sammo Hung and Yuen Woo-Ping, or his mentor, Chang Cheh. He worked a lot with Chang Cheh in the early 1970s, co-directing films like The Water Margin; All Men are Brothers; and The Pirate. Incidentally, The Pirate is generally considered to be one of the lesser Chang Cheh films during his Shaw Brothers tenure. But beyond that, Wu Ma’s solo career was very much hit-or-miss. For every Kick Boxer or Deaf Mute Heroine, there was a Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards. The best I can say that he was decent workman director: competent and reasonably entertaining most of the time, with the occasional moment of brilliance or dip into utter mediocrity.

The Dumb Ox is actually one of his better solo efforts, so far as I have seen. The film opens with a trio of men walking through the countryside with a whole lot of money they’ve accrued through their business dealings. One of them warns his friends about bandits, but the other says, “We’re from King Village, nobody dare mess with us.” Just then, a trio of masked men appear. One of the villagers is hung and the other two are beaten to death. The leader of the robbers, whom I’ll call ‘Boss’, reveals himself to be Addy Sung (The Four Robbers and Crystal Fist). He tells his two still-masked cohorts that he has some business in another city and tells them to hang tight.

Cut to King Village, where a stranger (Jimmy Wang Yu regular Lei Jun, of One-Armed Boxer and Beach of the War Gods) is harassing the local blacksmith. I’ll call him ‘Bounty Hunter,’ because it’s revealed that it is his occupation. The local Whore (Ting Hsiang, of Chiu Chow Kung Fu and The Legend of Mother Goddess) informs Bounty Hunter that the blacksmith is known as the Dumb Ox (Kam Kong, of A Girl Called Tigress and Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin) because he almost never talks. And he’s big and strong. Whore invites Bounty Hunter to her place for a good time, but he informs her that he’s broke and she loses interest.

Switch to the house of the town’s richest man, whom I’ll call “Dad” (Ma Chi, of The Brave and the Evil and The Killer Meteors). Dad has hired a duo of kung fu masters (Taiwanese regulars Lung Fei and Mao Shan) to teach his men kung fu. Dad’s son (Kwang Hung, another Jimmy Wang Yu regular) and daughter (Nancy Yen, of Ma Su Chen and The 7 Grand Masters) are also learning kung fu, of which the latter is the most promising. They all find out the aforementioned killings and start a patrol to keep an eye out for bandits. Bounty Hunter finds a metal contraption at the site of the murders and begins to suspect the Dumb Ox is involved.

We learn that the Dumb Ox was indeed once a bandit working under the Boss, although he was captured after killing a man during an escape and served time for his crime. It turns out that Bounty Hunter was present when the Dumb Ox was being paraded through the streets after his capture and now that crimes are happening in the area, the former suspects the latter is up to his old tricks. It doesn’t take much for him to convince the villagers, who are now in Angry Mob mode, to take their anger out on the Dumb Ox, too. The only person who doesn’t initially suspect him is Nancy, although enough coincidences occur that even she begins to wonder at some point.

Long story short, those other two masked killers are the two kung fu instructors, and they are not above trying to stoke up public sentiment against the Dumb Ox in order to hide their own crimes. The Bounty Hunter eventually relents and gives the Dumb Ox the benefit of the doubt, but when he finds out what’s really going on, he learns that his kung fu is just not good enough for the situation he finds himself in. So, the Dumb Ox is not going to have anyone to vouch for him when things get really violent…

The Dumb Ox is a sort of kung fu Les Misérables, with the Dumb Ox being our high-kicking Jean Valjean and the Bounty Hunter being the Javert equivalent. The film dwells a lot on how prejudiced people can be whenever dealing with someone with a criminal past, even though they themselves have gone straight and just want to be left alone. It takes very little for the villagers to get riled up against the Dumb Ox and once that happens, everything that happens around him serves to feed their Confirmation Bias. The villagers attack him, he fights back in self defense: he must be guilty. He pushes Son aside and an object falls on his leg and breaks it: he must have purposely maimed him. And so forth.

Eventually, the villains do overplay their hand and are forced to reveal themselves to the public. Even then, the Dumb Ox is forced into the moral quandary of “Do I help the people who have been treating me like crap for the past few weeks?” He eventually relents and does the right thing, leading into our climax. Nancy, who has waffled back and forth until now, joins him and puts her life on the line to stop the bad guys, although by the time the dust settles, the damage is done. The Dumb Ox can no longer live with the people he helped, even if he was the one who saved him. And sadly, the only person who is truly sad to see him go is the Whore, the closest thing he had to a friend.

I enjoyed the story, which is buoyed by some strong fight action courtesy of Leung Siu-Chung and Tommy Lee. Those two were collaborating on a lot of classic Bashers at the time, including Gold Snatchers; Black Panther; and The Two Cavaliers. They worked especially well with Polly Shang-Kuang Ling-Feng, staging the fights in her best bashers: A Girl Called Tigress; Seven to One; and Lady Whirlwind and the Rangers. They worked quite well together and we know that Tommy Lee (aka Gam Ming) would go on to be one of Taiwan’s best old school choreographers. Meanwhile, Leung Siu-Chung would never quite become one of the greats, but he did excellent work with Billy Chong in the latter part of his career.

The fights in this are very good by early 1970s basher standards. To be honest, this may be my favorite pure fighting performance by Kam Kong. Master of the Flying Guillotine may be his most iconic performance. And some of later villain roles like in Iron Monkey and The Crane Fighters required him to do more challenging shapes choreography. But this is the movie I’ve seen of his so far that really made the most of his training under Tan Tao-Liang. Unlike John Liu, who aped a lot of what Master Tan had taught him, Kam Kong doesn’t go for the flashy double/triple kicks or hop kicking. Instead, he just does the basics: side kicks, roundhouse kicks, etc. But he does them with altitude and power (his large frame helps sell the latter), which was often missing in basher movies. So, if you want to see what Kam Kong was all about, I suggest you watch this film (and Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin).

I don’t know if Nancy Yen was an actual martial artist, but if not, she fakes it quite well. She was the best thing in Ma Su Chen (of course, it was her movie) and she does good work here. Reliable veterans like Lung Fei, Shan Mao and Addy Sung also put in credible fighting performances. Shan Mao spends much of the latter part of the movie fighting with a sharpened iron circle hooked to a chain, which almost feels like a super-simplified flying guillotine. Addy Sung is presumably Opera trained, so his moves are a little flashier than those of his co-stars. Weapons are generally kept to the basics: poles and the odd spear or two. Standard basher procedure.

Between this and Wits to Wits (aka From China With Death), Wu Ma did well for himself in 1974. Too bad he could not always keep it up with this level of quality. But we all love him just the same.