The Master Strikes Back (1985)

The Master Strikes Back (1985) 
Chinese Title: 教頭發威
Translation: Instructor's Power

Starring: Ti Lung, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Sibelle Hu, Wong Yu, Fan Siu-Wong, Ku Feng, Phillip Ko Fei, Tony Lou Chun-Ku, Leung Lam-Ling, Lau Siu-Kwan, Lung Tien-Hsiang, Tien Mi, Wong Tin-Lam
Director: Sun Chung
Action Director: Yuen Tak, Tsui Fat, Cheng Ka-Sang

One of the last five Shaw Brothers kung fu/wuxia films, all of which were released in 1985. This one is a sequel to The Kung Fu Instructor is a rather dark film. Actually, the entire exercise goes beyond "dark" and is outright "sadistic" and "unpleasant" for practically its entire running time.

The film is set military outpost city called Phoenix Town, located in Guangxi, presumably on the border with Vietnam (today, that province is considered an autonomous region). Phoenix Town's main economy consists of brothels, which are supported by the soldiers stationed there (the money coming in from outside being their salaries). This has also led to a class of children known as the "Bastards," whose fathers are unknown and whose mothers have long since trying to keep up with whose child is who's. Anyway, their hasn't been a border conflict with Vietnam in some time, so the soldiers spend most of their time carting supplies from one place to another and spending their earnings at the brothels every night.

This is the context in which Tong Tie-Zheng (Ti Lung, of Vengeance! and Inheritor of Kung Fu) is called in from the neighboring Guangdong province to whip the unmotivated soldiers into shape. He arrives accompanied by his son, Xiao Feng (a young Fan Siu-Wong, later of Ip Man and The Death Games), and immediate locks horns with the town's corrupt constable, Captain Jin (Michael Chan Wai-Man, of Broken Oath and Spirits of Bruce Lee). Jin has a stake in the brothels' earnings, so when Instructor Tong cuts off his men's whorehouse privileges, Jin has even more reason to dislike the upright man.

It starts with one of the kids (the son of the magistrate) blaming Xiao Feng for theft, escalates to Jin's men picking a fight with Tie-Zheng at the brothel and blaming him for being a bully, and ultimate climaxes with Captain Jin convincing a visiting eunuch (Tony Lou) that Xiao Feng would make a good candidate for the Eunuch Training Program. It is that last one that ultimately makes Tong Tie-Zheng completely snap.

Michael Chan makes a wonderfully slimy villain, the sort of guy who does not content himself with one act of mischief in order to establish "Who's the boss." Instead, he just keeps on escalating things--as does the script--so that the atrocities and misfortunes get worse and worse until you want to see him die a horrible, bloody death. Captain Jin doesn't quite get that, but his final fate is fitting considering his crimes.

That also makes the film rather hard to watch, because there is almost no respite from all the awful goings-on throughout the running. A young Sibelle Hu, who plays the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, gets raped; another prostitute is forced to abort her own baby with a wooden stick and dies from blood loss; and we the viewer are not spared from watching a kid get castrated.

It might have been bearable if the film had had more action, but there are only three fight scenes, two of which are in the last ten minutes. The fights were staged by Yuen Tak (Dragon from Russia; The Lady Assassin), Tsui Fat (Crystal Hunt), and Cheng Ka-Sang (Johnnie To's The Mission) and are pretty good, it's just that there are so few of them. I liked the fight between Ti Lung and the constables in the prostitute's bedchamber, which had some nice wing chun and kicks from Ti Lung. We the viewer needed more of Tie-Zheng going ballistic on the Eunuch and the entire police force, but we don't get that. Several officers are killed offscreen. He beats a few of them with his pole--I wanted to see him go to town on the smug second-in-command. And then we get the pole-versus-sabre fight with Michael Chan, which isn't very long. By the time the credits roll, I felt like I had not gotten the catharsis I'd needed after 80 minutes of non-stop dourness.