Because of misunderstandings and treason, all of the problems of one kung fu school are blamed on a student from another. The student meets an old drunken master who trains him before he confronts the rival school.
This was pretty standard, but entertaining. I haven't seen a good kung fu flick in a while. The hour 47 duration passed moderately with dynamic pacing. The plot was murky and confusing. It also followed the kung fu revenge formula, which I expected. I actually liked the characters. Sammo Hung is great at comedy by being a fool and the Beggar So character played a classic drunken master. There were some dialogue jokes that crossed the language barrier and all of the actors did a good job in their stereotypical roles. The fights were action-packed and choreographed very well. Sets and costumes were exactly what I've come to expect from Chinese kung fu films of the late '70s and early '80s. There were wardrobe jokes when Sammo's clothes were missing or his pants fell down. The only thing that I noticed in camera-work was extra close ups during the fights, mostly hands demonstrating animal styles. Editing cuts also happened much faster during fights and there were slow motion shots mixed in. I didn't really notice to much wire being used for special effects. Audio was terrible. The mix was clipping on anything louder than normal conversation. I won't even go into "woosh" and "ha!" here. Entertainment Weekly gave it a C+, J. Doyle Wallis of DVD Talk rated it 3.5/5, Bill Gibron of DVD Talk rated it 93/100 and it has 7.5/10 on IMDB. This averages to a 78.75 C+ grade and I agree. It was mostly standard and cookie cutter. I liked the 2 main protagonists though. I rate this adequate.
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