Ying han gong fu ben

KUNG FU'S HERO is a rare and early kung fu vehicle for martial artist Lik Cheung. He plays a cop on the trail of an evil smuggling gang who traffic women for their own nefarious purposes. The film is set in a strange netherworld that looks like it comes from the 19th century in places although at other times features cars and the like.

The film takes a little while to get going with a slow first half an hour. However it soon picks up and around the halfway mark I really started to enjoy it. I should note that there is very little story in this picture, it's mainly just a string of intense fight scenes, one after another, as Cheung works his way through the various bad guys and takes them to pieces.

KUNG FU'S HERO has a great and extended action climax that draws together a car chase, a fight on a beach, characters racing around on push bikes, and some extended one-on-one bouts with various henchmen including a cameoing Bolo Yeung. It's great fun, even if the action choreography is never top tier; the sheer level of enthusiasm involved sees this one through.

It starts with our hero, Nick Cheung Lik, fights some gangsters shaking down travelers for a "road tax". Cut to a dragon dance hosted by the man I like to call "Mr. Smiley", Lee Wan-Chung, the guy with the biggest smile in martial arts movies. Nick catches a thief. A thin story finally develops with the kidnapping and smuggling of some women and Nick gets involved personally and professionally.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as wide screen but it is not true wide screen. The dialog is dubbed into English by the A team of voice over actors. It has the Ocean Shores logo.

The low point of this movie is a chase scene with a car, a bicycle, and a man running. A large pot hole wins the encounter.

The fights are frequent and mostly hand to hand. Nick does display some limited skill and use of the nunchucks. A staff fight near the end is better. The problem with the action is that once the discerning eye of the viewer starts to notice that some of the moves are poorly timed or off target then you start to notice that more than just some of the moves are sloppy. I am hesitant to recommend the movie to fans of the genre for that reason. But then there's Bolo and if you like these movies you just have to watch every one with Bolo.

Trapped in the world of smuggling young women, our hero, in this 1973 Hong Kong film, is a cop (supposedly) and has fallen for a young maiden. But she is captured by smugglers - who also want to rape the young woman. She also happens to be related to somebody at a kung fu school.

The acting is rather bad. Cheesy lines, bad plot, and little backdrop. There is one car in the picture and it places the film at least in 1940s China. However, there are no guns and no real civilians. All seems like a small piece of fantastical "China". After all, cops in China 60 years ago didn't need batons, clubs, guns, or anything else. They just needed kung fu! The fight scenes are well overdrawn. They could have been done shorter and made more sense. I have seen long fights in films like "Any Which Way You Can" and "They Live", but this was ridiculous. And what about all the fake 'hits'? I haven't seen that many missed punches and kicks since the last Seagal film.

Overall, its not that great. The stupidity keeps me entertained and laughing. But it wasn't entertaining in the way it wanted me to. "D+"