I have been meaning to post a review of this movie for some time but never had gotten around to it. It’s one of those movies that’s both memorable and forgettable at the same time. Part of the issue is the confusing narrative where the story is split into two time periods with two separate casts of characters. The other part is that there’s plenty of key moments that are so off based and combined with certain bizarre dialog translations have become a part of subculture (namely rap music). But this movie is worth mentioning because it’s another Venoms/Fu Sheng/Ti Lung collaboration.
Initially, we are introduced to two of the key villains of the later period of the narrative in an officer and his nephew, who are looking to take out the pupils/relatives of the famous Ten Tigers of Kwangtung as well as get revenge. They enter a casino where the officer points out the five pupils of the Kwangtung Tigers, mostly a supporting cast with two members who would eventually go on to become more main event players in later Shaw Brothers films. Because the five are gambling and drunk, the bodyguard member of the group escorts them to their rooms to avoid causing any commotion within the casino he works for. As a result, that gives the officer and the nephew the opportunity to strike at the guy as he is isolated. In turn, the remaining four are woken up over the assassination and begin telling the other section of the story, involving the “real” Ten Tigers (aka the characters that we actually should care about)
Wang Lung-Wei plays another officer in the older period and he’s after Ku Feng, who is a wanted convict by the court. Ti Lung is a pawn broker and dressed in a ninja type of disguise helps fend off some soldiers attempting to apprehend Ku Feng. In turn, Ti Lung takes Ku Feng to his treasure room to be safe where Ku Feng unveils his true identity and purpose. Thereafter, we are introduced to Fu Sheng’s character, the typical brash type that Fu Sheng would play.
Outside of Ti Lung’s pawn shop, a group of poor hawkers attempt to sell worn out clothes to “help out their dying mother”. Ti Lung gets his assistant to pay the group but secretly has Fu Sheng investigate their real motives. The group turn out to be employed by Ti Lung’s competitor and want to get Ti Lung to spend his money to go broke. Fu Sheng spares the group and is given back the money while one of the thugs points out the competitor involved in the racket. Afterwards, the group return to their boss who scolds them and we learn he’s a shady dealer who wants Ti Lung out of business.
Shortly thereafter, Wai Pak and Dick Wei arrive (two brothers who had real fame in history) and greet Fu Sheng on the way to meet Ti Lung. Ti Lung introduces them to Ku Feng and talk about recruiting others to help Ku Feng’s cause. Overhearing that Ti Lung wants Wang Yin Lin (Sun Chien) and Su Hei Hu (Lu Feng) on their team, Fu Sheng admits that he knows their location and goes off to find them. Ti Lung though talks about Fu Sheng’s (Tam Ming) past as he is nervous about Fu Sheng being the one to find Wang Yin Lin and Su Hei Hu. Naturally, Fu Sheng gets into a fight with both guys but in each case Ti Lung and his company intervene to get them to join their cause.
At that moment, the story goes back to the current narrative (which is where things may get confusing) so that one the pupils talk about the Qing plot to cause problems between patriots and heroes. So we’re taking back once again to the past where Philip Kwok, playing Beggar Su Chen, gives a demonstration of his kung fu. Most of the audience are unappreciative except one person and Fu Sheng. in Fu Sheng’s case, he merely wants to get into another fight and the two agree to some weird rules about hitting each other and killing themselves for losing. The rules alarm Ti Lung’s assistant who rushes to inform his master about what Fu Sheng might do if he loses.
So Ti Lung goes out to try and stop the fight but is intercepted by Tieh Chow San (Yang Hsiung), another famous kung fu hero who specializes in having great arm strength. Tieh Chow San is noble and honorable and believes Ti Lung is going to create unfair odds against Beggar Su. So the four fight until guards come to break things up. Before Tieh Chow San and Beggar Su can leave, the corrupt business owner requests that both accompany him to his place and talk about having them open up a gym funded by him. They agree and go off to apparently go off.
And I say that last statement because they randomly walk onto the property of Tzou Yu Sheng (Chiang Sheng) who specializes in using a pole. Of course, Beggar Su and Tzou Yu Sheng get into a small fight where Beggar Su can demonstrate his scissors kick. As they get into a draw, both express similar interest and decide to get drunk and hit up a casino. At the casino, both are rowdy and disturb one of the tables. In turn, Iron Fingers Chen Tie Fou (Lo Meng) appears and challenges Tzou Yu Sheng to move a pair of dominoes. Tzou Yu Sheng has an impossible time until Beggar Su spits wine into Iron Fingers’ face. Both clamor over their winnings and tell Iron Finger that he lost the contest and therefore his two fingers. In the English translation, Iron Fingers actually says “bullshit!” which is funny as fuck. But they dismiss the incident and decide to get drunk together.
As they wander around the street thoroughly inebriated, Beggar Su leads them to Ti Lung’s pawn shop and goad Iron Fingers into busting down the door. He claims, “No problem!” and starts smashing through while the others look worried with Ku Feng being potentially threatened. Wai Pak and Dick Wei take Ku Feng in the back while the remaining Tigers address the interruption. Tieh Chow San makes a cameo to fight with Ti Lung but stop just before things get too out of control.
Nonetheless, with Iron Fingers on their side, the other four give a demonstration at a new gym of their skills. However, Wang Lung-Wei isn’t happy about what he’s heard and questions the shady business man about his dealings for which the business man reveals he’s really working for the officer. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Ti Lung decides that his storeroom isn’t safe any longer and hides Ku Feng over at a brothel for which he’s friends with one of the workers. She agrees only if Ti Lung pays off her debts. He agrees to double and has Fu Sheng and Sun Chien stand guard.
But that raises suspicion as Ti Lung has the room and worker rented out for an extended period of time. More than that, Fu Sheng in particular is disruptive so that causes the shady business guy to call on Wang Lung-Wei to check things out as they setup a plot to potentially catch Ku Feng. Beggar Su, Tzou Yu Sheng and Iron Fingers decide to pay Fu Sheng a little visit (they want payback) and both Tzou Yu Sheng and Iron Fingers end up fighting with the pair. Eventually, the guards come to break up the fight but that means they need to evacuate Ku Feng as the guards want the place searched. As things break down in chaos, the Wang brothers, Lu Feng and Ti Lung help make the save to get Ku Feng out of the area. In the process, Tieh Chow San also shows up and Ti Lung accuses him of working with the Qing court.
Ti Lung and the others leave while the confused Tieh Chow San, Beggar Su, Tzou Yu Sheng and Iron Fingers try to get the real story from their shady patron. He gives them a fib about how Ku Feng is an arsonist, murderer and rapist which motivates the four to hunt him down. As things begin heating up, Ti Lung assembles his group with Lu Feng going to the docks to arrange for Ku Feng’s escape while Tieh Chow San, Beggar Su, Tzou Yu Sheng and Iron Fingers block them. Yet another fight breaks out (where we actually get a little bit of fighting from the Wang brothers) and things seem dismal for both sides until Ku Feng reveals himself to the deceived four. Armed with the truth, Tieh Chow San, Beggar Su, Tzou Yu Sheng and Iron Fingers align with Ti Lung and swear to protect Ku Feng.
At that point, we’re brought back to the present. This time, we’re shifted to the nephew character and his (uncle?) to hear the final leg of the story which is the demise of Wang Lung-Wei. So now, the heroes are met by Wang Lung-Wei with his soldiers. Ti Lung challenges Wang Lung-Wei where Ti Lung gives his famous, “I’d like to try your Wu Tang style. Let us begin” (which apparently is part of a rap song and the name of a group). Wang Lung-Wei uses a sword but Ti Lung breaks it, which causes the officer to use….a large Emmy trophy. Not even joking. WTF was that. Some large golden statue of some woman with boobs being used as a weapon.
At any rate, at some point during the fight, the soldiers decide to get their blows in but the Ten Tigers (except the Wang brothers who do nothing except stand guard next to Ku Feng) get their scene in. Everyone gets a blow or two in and Lu Feng does some odd ball flip to arrive near some sand bags to have his men trigger some fishing nets to haul off the remaining soldiers. That leaves just Ti Lung and Wang Lung-Wei to finish up their battle. Ti Lung ends up flipping the statue in the air and Wang Lung-Wei barely catches it above his head, except that Ti Lung smashes it onto Wang Lung-Wei’s skull which causes a really bad looking stream of blood to spurt out from his neck area and he falls down almost ready to bust out laughing because that scene was ridiculous.
Anyway, the only person not laughing is the nephew who nerdrages over his uncle’s demise and swears death and destruction to all. However, he still is cautioned to take care in dealing with the remaining pupils. The uncle (Tung Chi/Wong Lik) and nephew split up. One of the pupils puts on a show with an assistant, which is where the nephew goes while the uncle goes after another pupil who is with his fellow dock workers. The pupil with the dock workers is called out by his uncle (the one who gave Wang Lung-Wei’s demise story) and has the rest of the dock workers dismissed so Tung Chi and the pupil can go one-on-one.
So I have to admit, this by far is the best fight in the entire movie and is a personal favorite of mine in kung fu cinema. While I don’t particular care for the pupil here (he’s a jobber named Hsiao Yu), the fight itself is damn tight with all sorts of odd weapons being used by Hsiao Yu. When Tung Chi tells the pupil, “Go get yourself a weapon”, Hsiao Yu responds by grabbing a seat and says, “Anything I find becomes a weapon.” And pretty much he just goes around grabbing stuff like benches, umbrellas and even a pair of chopsticks and rice bowl to use as counters against a variety of Tung Chi’s ancient Chinese Batman style hidden weaponry (like a wobble sword that makes a metallic wobbling noise). Anyway, Tung Chi goes killer Spider Man on the jobber with a metal chain hook shooting from his wrist and kills him off.
Next, it’s the nephew’s turn as he gets the other pupil in near isolation for a personal kung fu demonstration. The other pupil is quite stupid though and does not suspect a single thing from the unfriendly demeanor of this rando showing up and immediately trusts the guy. So as the guy does a flip off the stage, the nephew literally backs stabs him with a knife. Afterwards, the mook assistant tries to unsuccessfully go for revenge, using his bald head to smash through various jars. Then the nephew (smartly) inserts his dagger into one of the jars and the mook rams his head directly into the fucking knife. The best part here is the mook’s expression as he’s dying. I tell you…kung fu death faces. There should be a site for that….
Anyway, the remaining two Ten Tiger pupils show up as the nephew assumes the dead pupil’s position after his uncle cleans up the dead bodies. The two pupils though know something is going wrong but play dumb and decide to bully the nephew a bit. They give him a “demonstration” of the Ten Tiger Kung Fu styles (which I’m suspicious of being real kung fu) that end up getting the nephew tied up and hanging by some ropes upside down. The nephew tries to go for his dagger but one of the pupils catches him and both reveal themselves and stab the nephew rather callously.
They return to (an aged) Lu Feng and Philip Kwok to get their final order as their numbers have been cut down drastically. Oddly, Lu Feng and Philip Kwok mention that they might not be around when the shit hits the fan. At any rate, the pair return to a casino where Tung Chi shows up. An argument breaks out with some random guy (like really who the fuck was that guy supposed to be in the show????) but they use that to mess with Tung Chi, who tries to attack the pair a few times unsuccessfully. However, Tung Chi shoots out his chain dart and breaks one of the pupil’s chairs but tells them the gig is up. So they get into a big fight where another random villain shows up out of nowhere calling himself Tung Ba. We have absolutely no idea whom this Tung Ba is outside of the fact that, “Wherever Tung Chi is, Tung Ba isn’t far behind.” But who the fuck is this guy?
Anyway, Tung Ba apparently is an expert spear man and he fights with a pupil who doesn’t use any of the Ten Tiger styles but employs a fucking double sided spear while the other pupil uses double short swords to fight Tung Chi. I mean, at this stage what has any of this have to do with the Ten Tigers? It just goes into typical late Venoms style Taiwanese acrobat weapons shit with flips and fancy weapons. At a certain point, Lu Feng and Philip Kwok make their cameos to help their kiddos out a bit. Tung Chi is launched onto a table and prone while one of the pupils stares dumbfounded. That allows Tung Ba to use his secret spear attack to shoot his tip into the pupil, who flies through the air and lands directly on Tung Chi with the spear end gutting Tung Chi. The pupil shoves the spear end through himself to nail Tung Chi to the table, who dies while he tries to go back to attack Tung Ba. Tung Ba though knocks the pupil away as Philip Kwok comes in to use his cape to direct Tung Ba into the ceiling where his feet are caught. With Tung Ba in that vulnerable state, Philip Kwok shows us why his scissors kick is deadly as he literally kicks Tung Ba’s head off (and you know it’s a cheap dummy if you slow mo the scene)
The pupil gives a weird grin then drops dead while his bud/cousin/whatever slow mo runs to check on him. We get another shot of the Ten Tigers on the shore saluting presumably the departing Ku Feng which fades into a shot of the five pupils mucking around having a laughing bromance.
Okay, where to start with this mess. I guess the first thing to talk about is a rumor I’ve read in a few spots that talk about how this movie was actually partly filmed much earlier than it was but got halted. When it was picked up some of the people involved no longer were with the studio anymore (maybe Wai Pak?). So that might explain why this film felt a little disjointed with two separate groups of actors for two distinct timelines.
However, I feel as part of what Chang Cheh might’ve been attempting to do was establish a new group of stars the way he did with Ti Lung/David Chiang/Chi Kuan-Tai, Fu Sheng/Chi Kuan-Chun and later on the Venoms mob. The last scene with the five bumbling around laughing make me think he needed a new group to replace the outgoing set of people and try to create a new villain. However, only two of the five from that group ended up becoming more significant in the Shaw Brothers universe (Chin Siu-Ho and Lung Tien-Hsiang). The others were more stunt men or support characters.
Truthfully though, I feel that the people Chang Cheh tried to select here (if that were indeed his plan) just didn’t have anything special the same way the Venom mobs did nor the charisma and kung fu ability of the other aforementioned stars. Most just seemed like typical Peking Opera acrobats and quite frankly, I wasn’t impressed as years went by with that style since it felt more like a bunch of monkey flips (one of the characters in the movie even addresses the scissors kick being similar to a circus somersault). The “real” kung fu stuff was being handled by Lau Kar-Leung, who was pushing different narratives that went beyond simple revenge and Chang Cheh’s tried but tiring trope of everyone but one or two people dying at the end.
The movie though, for an average viewer, might be horribly confusing due to the various swapping between two time periods. I say this is confusing because as a child, the first time I watched this movie, I had no idea what was going on nor why Fu Sheng (whom I recognized) would be in one set of scenes but not in others). There’s a lot of characters in this movie and they don’t do a great job truly establishing them. Instead, they use what the actors’ are known for such as Fu Sheng being a naughty kid, Philip Kwok being a homeless drunk, Lo Meng being a tough guy, etc. to convey the identities of the Ten Tigers. But certain characters like Wang Chi Ying, Wang Cheng Ke and Wang Yin Lin, kinda get pushed to the side, despite historically have more gravitas as per the Ten Tigers. So it’s more about the actors being their normal roles rather than them playing a role.
Again though I think part of the fault is probably the reported halting of the production at some point. I don’t know how much more was supposed to be shot because it feels like a good 20-30 minutes could’ve been tacked on with more character development as opposed to that future state where we got a bunch of jobbers/unknowns to waste time. I really didn’t understand the point of the Ten Tigers either. The kung fu aspect really isn’t poignant since the final fight makes the Ten Tigers styles completely irrelevant. And why have Lu Feng and Philip Kwok make last minute deux ex machina cameos if you’re trying to establish new stars?
So why would anyone want to watch this mess? In truth, the novelty for this movie is the all star casting of one of the last seven Venoms being hooked together in a movie along with Ti Lung and Fu Sheng. Sadly, Wai Pak really didn’t do much here and barely spoke which makes me suspect he was the person who no longer was under contract with the Shaw Brothers studio when this film resumed (maybe even Dick Wei but he was in more after 1979 just not in major roles). This felt more like a Venoms movie except with the major fight being Ti Lung vs Wang Lung-Wei and Fu Sheng as support.
The other reason to watch this is that the fights can be batshit crazy. I already mentioned the bizarro weapons with the golden oscar weapon, the chopsticks and rice bowl as well as Philip Kwok kicking some jabronie’s head off. The first dude had a really hilarious death scene where I dubbed the tiger claw to the back of the head the “bad hair kung fu style” because the guy had a helmet of hair and made a prune face before being launched by a single hand through the air. I think part of the zaniness is because Robert Tai is involved in the choreography and a lot of the stuff he’s involved in are nuts. I don’t think the kung fu for the most part is authentic and there’s too much flips, weapons and stunts for my taste. But I do like the stylization if anything.
Another thing is that the movie really is unevenly paced. I feel like all the older period parts moved better and the later stuff just was uninteresting. Again, I blame the actors as the five pupils just were as interesting as staring into the sun. At least with the Venoms crowd, they had chemistry while Fu Sheng is always fun to watch while Wang Lung-Wei is the penultimate kung fu villain of yesteryear. The only things I like about the later parts were the multi weapon kung fu scene and the various deaths. The death expressions are hilarious as fuck because these actors suck. Like the guy who gets stabbed in the back does a rigor mortis with a Mert-like expression on his face. You can’t help but laugh at him. Same with the bald dude whose eyes are all lit up like he just inhaled a tub of paint thinner.
Dialog and character in this movie are pretty bad. The dub is funny because it just sounds like the voice actors are going through the motion. Like when Wang Lung-Wei tells Ti Lung, “En garde. I’ll let you try my Wu Tang style.” The way he says it is so dead and emotionless. And there’s misdubs too like when the voice actor switches on one of Chiang Sheng’s lines as he’s talking to Iron Fingers. The characters are too simplified as I mentioned, relying on what the actors had done in the past.
At any rate, there’s better Venoms, Fu Sheng and Ti Lung movies out there. See this one for novelty and the laughs.
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