Wu xing ba quan

The Secret of Chinese Kung: Strong enough for a...Just kidding. This film is like a cross between 'The Big Boss' and 'Shane'. Two women from a fishing village rescue a stranger who happens to be good at kung fu. The stranger helps the two women fight against an oppressive "big boss" portrayed by Lo Lieh. I rented the film from a local video store on a VHS copy released from the original distributor, Ocean Shores Video. Now, the film has been re-released by Tai Seng in their Martial Arts Theater series. The great Lo Lieh is given top billing on the DVD's artwork. However, in this film, Lo Lieh isn't given much of an opportunity to show of his prowess. There's a Eurasian-looking Bruce Lee clone who portrays the heroic stranger. The fight scenes are pretty well choreographed, but this film lacks originality. Some scenes from "The Big Boss" are even filmed shot-for-shot in this film and are sometimes slightly altered so the scenes wouldn't qualify as direct plagiarism. This film isn't that bad, but it's not great, either. Still, it's watchable.

Two women walking on the beach notice Lo Lieh and have a problem with that. The next girl is a hooker and happy to see him. Lo is the villain and back in town. Our hero washes up on the beach. He becomes the town hero because he knows martial arts.

The movie drags on for twenty minutes before the first fight. The second fight is mostly a slap stick beating. Thai and Japanese fighters are brought in but they fight the same as the Chinese. The action does pick up in the second half but the fights are the same thing over and over with no attempt at originality. The final fight is about twelve minutes long.

My copy is the old Ocean Shores VHS as a digital file with English dub.

I watched it once to write this review, no regrets, but I can't recommend it and doubt I'll ever watch it again.