The Eagle's Killer (1981)
Chinese title: 拜錯師父叩錯頭
Translation: Worship the Wrong Master, Kowtow to the Wrong Person
Starring: John Cheung Ng-Long, Hwang Jang Lee, Cheng Kang-Yeh, Fan Mei-Sheng, Chin Pei-Ling, Chiang Kam, Kao Yuen, Pan Yung-Sheng, Mai Kei
Director: William Cheung Kei
Action Director: Gam Ming (Tommy Lee)
This is a surprisingly bland and forgettable movie from the guy who gave us Bruce Lee's Secret and Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guards, which is an important film for me. Nineteen Eighty-One was a little late (outside of South Korea) for slavish iterations of the Seasonal Formula. This film is nothing more than an uninspired rehash of Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, with Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee essentially reprising his role as Thunderfoot, now referred to as Ghost Hand.
John Cheung (of Project A II and Police Story II) plays Tai, an orphan who works as a cook at a kung fu school run by a charlatan (Pan Yung-Sheng). After a bit of nonsense involving Tai humiliating the newest student, a rich fat kid (Chiang Kam, doing the same thing he did in SITES), Tai is kicked out of the school and goes on the search for a new master. He runs afoul of the local Rich Asshole Kid (Cheng Kang-Yeh, of Heroes of the East and Executioners from Shaolin) after some business involving the latter stealing Tai's fish. Tai's kung fu isn't very good, but it's enough to get his butt out of trouble. The Rich Kid and more of his men show up and get the drop on Tai, although he's just skilled enough to avoid being drowned in the river.
Tai is found by a random kung fu master (Choi Fai) who agrees to teach him. Almost immediately after that, a killer (So Hon-Sang) shows up and murders the master. Tai and the Killer get into a scuffle over the money Tai had given the now-defunct master for his lessons and after a lengthy comic fight-and-chase, the killer gets a taste of his own medicine at the hands of Ghost Hand (Hwang Jang Lee), a famous assassin. Ghost Hand agrees to take Tai on as his student, but actually plans on selling Tai into slavery instead. After a sodomy gag involving a bunch of muscular men running a train on the Rich Asshole Kid, Tai is rescued from another attack by an old master (Fan Mei-Shang), whom Tai had previously befriended. The old master agrees to teach Tai kung fu. But the Rich Asshole Kid's dad wants to avenge his son's humiliation and starts hiring killers to take out Tai and the master...
If this film has anything over the films it rips off, it's that it actually resolves the underlying conflict that leads to Hwang Jang-Lee getting hired. In Drunken Master, the film ends with Jackie Chan defeating Thunderfoot, but ignores the fact that somebody had to have hired him in the first place. This one does have our hero facing off with the Rich Kid and his dad before the climax, so all lose ends are tied up by the end...well, except for the question of whatever happens to the old master's blind sister. Everything else is ripped off somehow from SITES and DM, with the exception of the sodomy gag, which is just odd. And the humor in the first half gets old very quick.
The action was staged by Gam Ming (Tommy Lee), with help from Bruce Tong and Lung Fong (Jimmy Lee). Tommy Lee showed in movies like Goose Boxer and Mysterious Footworks of Kung Fu that he could do really good work in a Drunken Master rip-off. This movie, however, has some of his most uninspired work. It doesn't help that the the action doesn't really pick up until the last half hour. The fight with the four killers in leopard-print vests is pretty good. The finale with Legendary Hwang Jang Lee is not bad, but it feels derivative of other movies. Hwang is using the Eagle's Claw like he did in Invincible Armour; SITES; and Hell's Wind Staff. His bootwork is muted for the most part: he does the basic kicks well and he does the one where he wraps one leg around his opponent's neck and then does a glute kick to the opponent's face. But don't expect his trademark aerial kicks. The Eagle's Killer is for die-hard Hwang Jang Lee fans only.
Five Fingers of Steel (1982)
Aka: Blood Child
Chinese Title: 血雙
Translation: Blood Double/Pair
Starring: Yuen Miu, Kwon Young-Moon, Yen Shi-Kwan, Lee Yi-Yi, Chan Lau, Chu Tit-Wo, Lam Hak-Ming, Lau Hok-Nin, Hwang Jang Lee
Director: Vincent Leung
Action Director: Hwang Jang Lee, Yuen Miu
This is the spiritual follow-up to Young Hero: made by the same studio with a very similar cast (Yuen Miu, Kwon Yung-moon, Chan Lau, and of course, Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee). This film benefits from having a more involved plot than that movie and it takes some very dark turns, even by genre standards.
The film opens with a young woman (Lee Yi-Yi, of Bruce Strikes Back) sitting in front of the governor's office, tending to her baby. When the guards come outside, they notice that the baby is not only dead, but it has been brutally murdered. The woman is arrested on suspicion of murder and then the film flashbacks to the story proper.
Master Lung (Chu Tit-Woh, of Tiger Over Wall and Sword Stained with Royal Blood) has just opened a security escort service. At the opening ceremony, the party is crashed by the top students of the High Kick school: Yu Hu (*snicker* - Lau Hok-Nin, of Tiger Over Wall and Hell's Wind Staff) and Ah Chu (Lam Hak-Ming, of Dirty Ho). Those two perform a lion dance and then start attacking the guests (while in Lion dance mode) which eventually breaks out into a huge fight between them, Lung Chan (Yuen Miu, of Young Hero) and Captain Yu (Yen Shi-Kwan), who is Master Lung's nephew. The two sides are more or less fighting to a draw until Master Lung steps in.
The Master of the High Kick School, Choi Hu-Fung (Kwon Yung-Moon, of Young Hero and The Rebellious Reign), hates the idea of his students getting humiliated. So, he and his flunkie, Mr. Chan (Chan Lau), decide to scheme and conspire to get the new security service closed. Mr. Chan talks the governor (Pak Sha-Lik) into hiring the new escort company to transport some gold to another city. On their journey, the members of the High Kick School, including Master Choi, dress as bandits and ambush the caravan. They kill everybody and mortally wound Master Lung, while Lung Chan is kicked off a cliff and left for dead. Captain Yu is accused of conspiring with the bandits and is arrested. Master Lung manages to crawl back to the company but promptly dies. The High Kick School takes over the property of the escort company in order to pay off the debt of the "stolen" gold. And to add insult to injury, Master Choi rapes Master Lung's daughter, who is the woman we saw in the opening scene. Guess who gets pregnant?
Lung Chan is nursed back to health by a hermit fighter named Mr. Wong (Hwang Jang Lee, who needs no introduction). Wong was humiliated by Choi Hu-Fung years before and "went off the grid" in order to train for revenge. He eventually heads back to town just in time to rescue Ling, his sister, from killing herself. He tries to bust Captain Yu out of the joint so they can team up with Mr. Wong and get revenge against the High Kick School...
Rape! Murder! Kidnapping! Infanticide! Lots of horrible things happen to the good guys before the finally manage to organize themselves to seek revenge. This time, the fights are staged by Yuen Miu and Hwang Jang Lee, who do a good job with the fights, which mix shapes and kicks. The finale pits Hwang and Kwon Yung-moon in what would be their third fight together--after Ring of Death and Young Hero--and it's arguably the best (although it ends on a downbeat note). Hwang gets a better showcase for his kicks than he did in Young Hero and Kwon's kicking skills, while different aesthetically than Hwang's, are no less impressive. Yuen Miu also looks a little better and depends a smidgen less on acrobatics than he did in Young Hero.
Recommended for the fights and its dark tone.
