!979 was a prolific year (if not the most prolific) in the history of martial arts movies. It is always difficult to rate these movies into some kind of Top Ten for many reasons. Yet, for me there is no doubt this is one of the best movies of 1979.
These movies sometimes get criticized for having no story yet in the best of these movies the fights ARE the story. Good fight choreography tells the story and advances the plot. The stuff in between the fights could actually be removed and the fights alone would still tell the story. For example a fight where two buddies are clowning around should look totally different from a fight where a student is challenging the skill of a master. Plus a fight where a student is challenging the skill of a master should look totally different when the student is the good guy compared to when the student is the bad guy. If the fight is choreographed well the viewer should be able to skip to the fight and tell exactly what is going on in the story.
This movie does all of that plus a side of fries. I was not surprised to see the Yuen clan credits as fight choreographers. Every fight in this movie tells a different part of the story and because of that every fight is unique. It has the expected training sequence with the physical torture and more. The martial arts moves shown during the training sequence are repeated in the final fight to show that they actually have a fighting application.
I was unsure of the comedy in the final fight. At first it seemed the final fight should be totally serious and comedy had no place there. The Yuen brothers got it right. There had to be comedy in the final fight. Actually the ridiculous part where Hwang Jang-Lee gets his comeuppance is pure genius.
I rate this as mandatory viewing for fans. It is an educational experience in fight choreography in addition to pure entertainment. I rate it as 9 out of 10 and I only gave out one 10 ever.
