A Chinese action comedy directed by Sammo Hung, starring Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao.
5 men go to Japan to free their friend from mobsters.
Stupid, pointless and incoherent. I watched about an hour of the 1.5 hour duration and was still lost. I have a feeling that most of the humor that may have been there was lost in translation. I didn't see much action either. In accordance with my turn off policy, I rate this shit. Do not watch!
A Chinese kung fu directed by Robert Clouse, starring Bruce Lee, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The version that I watched involved the hero in conflict with a crime syndicate, including motorcyclists with striped suits. There are other versions with different plots.
This is the yellow and black tracksuit film and Bruce Lee's last film. Hence, the historical significance of a mediocre kung fuvie. I think I saw the 1972 version a long time ago, which did not include the gangsters. The other main point to note is Bruce Lee's death. In the beginning of the 1978 version, his character is acting in a movie and a light almost falls on him. There was also a scene in which Bruce Lee's actual corpse was shown in his coffin. The only part of the film that I liked was the main character going up floors of a building to face other kung fu masters. This obviously includes the climax fight against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (also his replacement in re-shooting). The image that I have chosen was to illustrate the main fight and is not from the 1978 version that I watched. If you're into Chinese kung fu films at all, you have to see this at some point because of its historical significance. However, it is not that great a movie. I rate it adequate.
A Chinese kung fu directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Yuen Biao and Kwan Tak-hing.
A fighter's wife who used to wear bells was killed in an ambush at a restaurant, causing him to become evil. He is hiding out with an opera troupe and wants to kill a cowardly man who runs a laundry business.
I was expecting another run of the mill kung fu snoozer, but this was worthwhile. The plot was a little convoluted (aren't they always?) but had a reason for why the villain went evil. Not many films explain why the bad guy is bad. The casting for him and the hero was great. Biao was the hero and Tak-hing was the teacher (his constant role). The villain doesn't even have a wikipedia page, but he was perfect for the part. There were a few too many other characters, but that's another staple of the genre that goes with the unnecessary plot points. A little bit of crappy acting is yet another of the unavoidable kung fu cliches, but the main characters did a great job. I can't really say much about the dialogue, but I found good subtitles. Sets and costumes looked extremely recycled, like every kung fu flick ever made shared them. The exception was the dog costume for the lion dance scenes. The choreography for those and the fights was done exceptionally well. This is not just because it looks good, but because of context and use of props and special effects. It wasn't just "Let's fight!", but a lion dance competition fight, accidentally showing eagle claw techniques in front of the teacher, etc. I also liked the use of Hong Kong wire and wuxia style long sleeve weapons. The editing was all very quick and the camera-work straight forward, but I could see what was going on and there were a few creative angles to give context to some situations like when the killer scales an alley wall. One of my least favorite kung fu cliches is bad sound and this had it. I swear every sound was peaking the levels, with most being distorted. IMDb has a rating of 7.5/10 listed for this, AllMovie has 0/5 AllMovie rating with 3.5/5 user rating and Rotten Tomatoes has 85% Audience Score. 57.5% average seems really low to me and all because of the zero from AllMovie. I rate this good because I'm so tired of kung fu flicks that it hurts and even I liked it. Watch this if you're just as bored with whoosh, swack and fighting for no reason.
A Chinese American directed by Sandra Weintaub, starring Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Cynthia Rothrock.
Basic information on martial arts is given, followed by examples of different elements involved in the films.
If you want to watch some fight scenes, this movie is for you. If you want information, titles and years, watch Films of Fury. The hour 26 duration seemed to go on forever because it was all just fighting. It had pitifully low information density and only a few people were interviewed. These people also showed up in all of the fight scenes. They were Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Cynthia Rothrock. John Saxon's narration was unenthusiastic and dry, the opposite of the narrator from Films of Fury. Most of the clips looked and sounded alright, but some were so underexposed that the fighting was nearly invisible in a sea of black. This has a 7.3/10 on IMDB. I think that the score should be lower because documentaries are supposed to be relatively informative. I'm not talking a master class in kung fu flicks, but titles and years for the clips would have helped. I rate this poor for low information density. The only thing that saves it from "bad" is in depth interviews with Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.
A Chinese kung fu directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Sammo Hung, Kwan Tak-hing and Yuen Biao.
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.
