The first time I watched this movie was about six years ago on a DVD I bought. That was probably the worst DVD I ever bought as instead of writing a review I just made notes complaining about the subtitles covering one third of the screen, about 12,000 skips of the picture and the subtitles appearing and disappearing. A few years later I found this movie on You Tube with widescreen and proper subtitles. That made the difference between pain and pleasure in watching a movie. I withheld my review until I could watch it properly.
"The Chinese Boxer" was Jimmy Wang Yu's last Shaw Brothers movie. It was also the first Shaw Brothers movie he starred in, wrote, and directed. (I doubt anyone has ever accomplished that hat trick.) Looking at the dates it took Jimmy only about three months to take his act to Taiwan and star in, write, and direct another fine movie.
The movie starts with a gang of thieves plan to rob an escort. At the site of the confrontation both sides talk before fighting. That unwatchable DVD had much different subtitles than the good quality version. The gang leader says "My name is Chan and it is my pleasure to be your robber." I loved that line. Yet the other version did not have it. Yes, there was some polite talk first but that great line was not there.
The first fight is a brawl and it was done right. Sometimes brawls look good at first but when you watch it again you see nothing but a lot of jumping around and sword waving. This brawl is done right because opposing sides are dressed in black versus white making it easy to see who is who. The long shots are used only a few times to show the viewer if one side is starting to overcome the other as in just a glance you can see who has greater numbers still standing. Most of the shots show the action of the main characters. These shots are close but not too close. It all wraps up with just the leader of the escort standing alone against the many remaining robbers. He does a great job fighting but then is killed by a dirty trick. Therefore though he lost the fight he maintained his honor to the end.
Jimmy arrives at about the 20 minute mark. He saves a child from a runaway horse to show he is the hero. Then he takes a seat at "Exposition Tea House" and listens to the locals explain the story line. The daughter of the escort company owner will be out for revenge.
Polly was riding that horse. The gang is looking for her. She meets with Jimmy at an inn and immediately have a misunderstanding.
Like most fans I rate this just above average for the year and genre. I compare Jimmy's style with his contemporaries this way. Bruce Lee was unbeatable fighting perfection. Jackie Chan was not the best fighter but always found a way to win usually by improvising or being cleverer than his opponents. Jimmy was also not the best fighter but he was an unstoppable relentless force. By the time he made his flying guillotine movie I began calling him the madman of martial arts movies.
