My Rebellious Son (1982)

My Rebellious Son (1982)
aka: Raging Tiger
Chinese Title: 小子有種
Translation: You Have Guts, Kid!

Starring: Alexander Fu Sheng, Ku Feng, Tang Ching, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Cecilia Wong Hang-Sau, Ai Fei, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Tin Ching, Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Yuen Wah, Ng Hong-Sang, Wong Wai-Tong, Lee Fat-Yuen, To Wai-Wo, Kong Chuen
Director: Sun Chung
Action Director: Tong Gai, Huang Pei-Chih

My Rebellious Son was directed by Sun Chung, the man behind one of the all-time classics: The Avenging Eagle. He has a couple of other important films under his belt, like The Deadly Breaking Sword and To Kill a Mastermind. Unlike Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-Leung (and Chor Yuen after 1976), Sun Chung never allowed himself to be completely pigeon-holed into making just kung fu and/or wuxia films. When he did kung fu, he did it well…quite well…extremely well at times. But he also dabbled in true crime (Homicides– The Criminals, Part II); erotica (Dreams of Eroticism); and horror (Revenge of the Corpse). Heck, his other 1982 film, Human Lanterns was a mixture of horror and wuxia. My Rebellious Son ended up being his penultimate Shaw Brothers film, with him coming back to the studio for the low-budget follow-up to his own The Kung-Fu Instructor: The Master Strikes Back.

This movie revolves around a father-son pair of bone-setters (or physicians, for all practical purposes): Chang Tak-Tai (Ku Feng, of Dynamo and Bruce and the Iron Finger) and Chang Siu-Tai (Alexander Fu Sheng, of Heroes Two and Five Shaolin Masters). The art of bone-setting has long been a tradition of the Chang family and the general cycle is for dad to practice until he reaches old age, and then retire and enjoy life while his son takes up the mantle. The problem is that Tak-Tai has reached old age (he was 52 here, but he was a convincing old man 11 years prior, to be honest) and is still a spry, energetic man. That means that he is still running the family clinic while his son is still just an assistant.

Tak-Tai is also a very demanding man, constantly brow-beating his son for every little transgression. Even when Siu-Tai is late because he’s helping a Westernized Chinese girl, Judy Shum (Cecelia Wong, of Shaolin Mantis and Ol’ Dirty & the Bastard), his dad’s reaction is to berate him. So, there Siu-Tai loves and respects his dad, but often wants to put his dad into compromising situations in order to prove that he has what it takes.

For example, those dastardly foreigners and their Westernized Chinese sycophants have decided to prove to the locals that Western boxing, wrestling, and fencing is superior to Chinese kung fu. They manipulate the school run by Master Jiang (Walter Tso, of My Young Auntie) into participating in an exhibition match with a big bruiser (Dragon Force’s Randy Channell). Siu-Tai gives dad an extra dose of anesthetic in his tea in order to make his dad pass out and step in, accepting the duel on behalf of the Jiang school.

The main conflict involves the foreigners wanting to steal a gold statute of the Goddess of Mercy from the local temple to give to one of the rich Englishman. The Englishman is supported by local Western Athletics Gym, run by the rich official/brown noser, Mr. Tang (Tang Ching, of Wrath of the Sword and The Bloody Fight). His son, Robert (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, of Martial Club); Robert’s friend (Lam Fai-Wong), and the archetypical interpreter, Mr. Chun (Tin Chung), act as the enforcers for Chairman Tang and they are determined to steal the statue. But Master Chang is part of the “Buddha Protection Squad” and is always around to stand up for the villagers’ rights to worship the statue.

Robert and Mr. Chun decide to bring in a bunch of Japanese kendo masters, led by Yamaguchi (Michael Chan, playing a Japanese fighter like he did that same year in Five Element Ninjas). When Chang Siu-Tai tries to steal the statue himself in an effort to embarrass his dad and take his place, the Japanese fighters (dressed as ninjas) catch this and end up stealing it themselves. Will the Chang duo be able to recover the statue before it goes the way of so many other artifacts that fell into the hands of the British?

I found My Rebellious Son to be a fascinating movie. I had watched My Young Auntie just a week earlier and this film often feels like a gender inversion of that movie. Instead of the bumpkin girl and the Western-educated boy her age getting into hijinks, one of the subplots involves Judy Shum falling for Chang Siu-Tai after he gives her medical attention when she falls from a horse. The thing is, her Western ways are a mystery to him, so her actively seeking him out is practically an affront to his more traditional view of courtship. It does culminate in a kung fu dance sequence, made a year before a similar one was staged in The Champions and 14 years before Wu Jing mixed wushu and the Tango in Tai Chi II.

But more than that, this film completely felt like a partial sequel to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master. Moreso, it feels like an initial script for Drunken Master II, which came out 12 years later. Knowing that both Wong Kei-Ying and Wong Fei-Hung were herbalists/healers, it’s hard not to see that in Chang father-son duo. And you see the seemingly impossible task of the son trying to please his father, but his happy-go-lucky personality getting in the way at every turn. Add to that an external conflict of an Englishman trying to steal cultural artifacts—specifically a golden statue here—with the help of Western-educated and dressed Chinese toadies and it feels extremely similar to DM2. To be perfectly honest, I now consider My Rebellious Son to be Drunken Master Version 0.1. It would make for a fascinating experience to watch Drunken Master; this film; and then Drunken Master II in rapid succession.

The action scenes were staged by Tong Gai and his brother, Huang Pei-Chih. Those two had worked extensively with Sun Chung, especially once Sun had started focusing on martial arts movies in the second half of the 1970s. The fights are pretty good. The fight between Fu Sheng and Randy Channell is a nice mix of kung fu and boxing, not too dissimilar from the fights in Jet Li’s Born to Defence and Ip Man 2. There is a real good fight halfway through when a bunch of thugs attack the two Chang’s at their shop: kung fu, weapons (including the three-section staff), and zaniness is on display during this lengthy sequence. That is topped by prolonged fight between Fu Sheng and the Japanese masters (who include Yuen Wah), who ambush him with their katana blades. There is some great choreography in this scene.

The finale is a bit of a disappointment, although it feels like the inspiration for the bookending sequences of Jet Li’s Fearless. Fu Sheng must face with the foreign fighters in a succession of fights. It starts with Wang Lung-Wei’s Robert, using a more modern kickboxing style (which would soon become the style of the time). It moves onto John Ladalski (Inheritor of Kung Fu and Bloodfight), which fight is played for laughs. The next fight is with the Western fencer (Mimmo Gasbarri, of Ninja in USA and The Super Ninja) has Fu Sheng matching him with the jian, or two-edged straight sword. That is very much a Fearless thing. The same goes for the final fight, which pits Fu Sheng against the sword-wielding Yamaguchi, which also feels like Fearless. I really liked the choreography in these sequences (except for the John Ladalski segment), but since this set piece starts 10 minutes before the film is to end, each individual fight feels very short by genre standards.

I wouldn’t say My Rebellious Son is a great movie, but it feels like an inspiration for so many movies that came later—Drunken Master II; Fearless; Tai Chi 2; etc—and it does a good job on every aspect (fight direction, characters, etc.) that is should be watched by all fans.