The Big Family

I don't even know why I'm commenting on this I'm probably the first person in north america to have seen it. Anyway just in case someone else was lured into renting this hoping for cheesy hong kong action, here's my review. This sucks. It is the story of some dumb ass family who don't like this other family who deals in crime. I should make it clear this is more of a drama than a kung fu movie. It deals with the good family's father being too critical of his family instead of understanding and loving them. One of the father's sons is addicted to marijuana because the evil family supplies it to him. Another son keeps stealing money from his mother to support his Mahjong gambling habits (this plot point does not develop at all.) anyway, the son who is addicted to marijuana has his girlfriend murdered by his drug dealer and is framed in the process (this plot point although taking up at least a third of the movie is forgotten by the end.) Anyway at the end the evil family challenges the good family. and then something happens that you can probably guess at.

Bolo yung is in this at the start....he was cool. There are about four fight scenes, none are good.

This movie caught my eye because of the name Sek Kin. You might know him from films such as "Enter the Dragon" where he played Bruce Lee's antagonist. More people know him from 545 other movies he played in, particularly over 100 Wong Fei-Hung movies. Sek Kin was 63 years old in 1976. In this movie he is the head of a triad family but keeps insisting the family doesn't do anything illegal, according to his own loose definition of illegal, like no drug dealing. His sons get into all sorts of trouble with the other triad bosses. It starts off simple when one son beats Bolo in a fight, basically just to show off, and creates disrespect. The other son escalates the situation with drugs and murder. So as it always does, it comes down to a final fight. Initially I was concerned because Sek Kin only did demonstrations of martial arts during the first hour of the movie. I was not disappointed though because he did real fighting in the final sequence. This movie is for fans of martial arts movies from the golden age and fans who know all about Sek Kin. If you are watching it for any other reason you will be disappointed and rate it about 4 out of 10. But if you are a fan like me this movie is definitely an above average 6 out of 10 on the appearance and skills of Sek Kin.