Yonghoui sachondeul

I watched a film with the English title of BUDDHIST FIST & TIGER CLAWS, but I don't think it's a same film as the title which is linked on IMDb. For a start this is a contemporary crime thriller, not a fantasy, and in addition the credits are completely different on the print I saw. The direction is credited to Godfrey Ho and the producer is listed as Tomas Tang; the cast lists mainly Mandarin names. This may have been a South Korean movie or alternatively one shot in Hong Kong or Taiwan; I really have no idea. It's a pretty average film anyway, about a pair of card sharps who get involved with the mob and have to fight for survival. The main fun comes from the novelty of seeing Hwang Jang Lee in one of his rare good guy performances.

Lee turns out to be just as efficient a fighter playing the hero as he was playing the baddie, although seeing him getting beaten up so easily early on is a bit difficult to swallow. The rest of the plot is quite ordinary, with sneering master villains and the like, with physical deformity or quirk usually added to enhance the villains (in this instance one of them has a blind eye). The acting is undistinguished, but the suits certainly look expensive, and the action is fresh and fast enough to make this work.

First of all there's no fantasy here just contemporary action crime. The good - Hwang Jang-Lee. He is out of make-up as the typical white eyebrows villain and plays the hero. The bad - by hero I mean slightly less a total butt-head than the other characters. The good - a Korean chick strips down. The bad - all you see are her knees. The bad - totally "make it up as we go" plot about a map you'll quickly grow tired of hearing about. The good - the movie is only about 80 minutes long. The good - they spent most of the budget on wardrobe. The bad - they spent it on 1970's men's suits. The incomprehensible - lines like "I wish we were rich enough that we didn't need money", and "I'm buying a hospital with my share of the gold". The incomprehensible - the boss sends a lame guy to follow a girl. The incomprehensible - the fights are really good yet there are so few. The good - your fast forward button. Overall, below average for the genre. Enjoy the fights and laugh at the nonsense in between or just fast forward.