This is another Gordon Liu/Lau Kar-Leung classic where Gordon Liu reprises his role as Wong Fei Hung in a story about a conflict between three schools. This movie is a little less focused at times compared to other Lau Kar-Leung movies but the final fight scene is where I think this movie shines the most.
The movie starts off showing the etiquette of the traditional Chinese lion dance and how rival schools may view certain moves to be unruly or aggressive. In turn, we get a Chinese lion dance demonstration as the explanation transitions into the actual story where another rival school comes to disrupt the dance. The rival school immediately violates a variety of principals and a fight breaks out where the instructors from both sides sit each other’s lead students down to apologize for the incident.
Despite the fact that the movie introduces us to the Chinese lion dance, this aspect isn’t the main theme in the movie. Instead, the real themes revolve more around etiquette and principals behind kung fu. The two main characters of Wong Fei Hung and his friend Wang Yinlin (Robert Mak) attempt to outdo each other in showing off their martial prowess. Both believe their kung fu is superior and they get into various trouble with their friendly rivalry. A few instances of these incidents are wearing their belt knot in the wrong spot (which indicates the wearer is an instructor), bribing fighters to lose to them and eventually encountering a superior fighter (Master Shan Xiong played by Wang Lung-Wei) who accidentally injures Wang Yinlin to create friction between Yinlin and Fei Hung’s schools.
Wang Yinlin’s sister Wang Juying (Kara Hui) doesn’t help in these situations as she herself is a trouble maker looking to get into a fight or finding an excuse to enter into one. Part of her misguided role ends up being the one responsible for misleading her brother into the fight with Wang Lung-Wei but misinterprets the injury to Wang Yinlin as being caused by Fei Hung’s tiger style. But with Yinlin being unable to communicate due to his throat injury, he cannot repudiate Juying’s claim and she goes to raid the Fei Hung school.
Beyond these mishaps, there’s other aspects to the story of how Yinlin gets into trouble while Fei Hung sticks with practicing. Yinlin is a playboy and frequents a brothel. He takes Fei Hung there on one occasion to demonstrate his misappropriated use of kung fu to show off in front of the women there. Fei Hung tries to warn Yinlin away from such a place as he predicts that Yinlin will eventually get into trouble and lose his skills in favor of fooling around. Down the road, he gets tricked by the women working there into tying him with a secretly planted oxtail binding belt that allows the rival school to retaliate for their earlier humiliation. Once again, Yinlin is injured, this time his leg is broken and he’s forced to be locked up as punishment for insubordinati0n.
Nonetheless, Fei Hung learns the true culprit and goes to the rival school to seek out the troublemaker, which stirs the pot. After a large fight breaks out, Fei Hung and Yinlin’s masters come down to break up the riot while the rival school invites them to their playhouse as reparation. However, it’s merely a setup to entrap the schools as the rival school accuses them of not paying. Another major fight breaks down until both Wang Lung-Wei and Master Wong Qiying come down once more with the guards to halt the fight.
Because of the damages done, Wang Lung-Wei proposes his own method to amend the situation. Lu Shanhou, fearing reprisal and having a great deal of respect for Wang Lung-Wei, agrees to the terms. So they invite Fei Hung and Juying to receive gifts. In truth, Wang Lung-Wei’s idea is to test their kung fu and see if they can withstand the test. Fei Hung accepts and succeeds in passing the test to receive the gifts of cloth and rice. From there, the final fight between Wang Lung-Wei and Fei Hung occurs in a secret alley where they can further test their kung fu.
It’s almost a draw except that Wang Lung-Wei manages to stick his booted toe against Fei Hung’s throat but it’s enough where Wang Lung-Wei off to the side tries to mimic Fei Hung’s Iron/Horse Wire style in admiration. In conclusion, Wang Lung-Wei talks about his purpose in coming to Canton and about the limits of kung fu and mastery. He declares that Wong Qiying lead the first of the five Tigers of Kwangtung with Fei Hung leading the next five.
So I didn’t go into precise detail and chronological order of events. I felt that the story was fine but it wasn’t focused enough where the initial premise with the lion dance was followed through to the end. This movie really was more about martial arts etiquette and ideals. For instance, there’s a scene where Fei Hung confronts Wang Lung-Wei and hands back his spear, for which Wang Lung-Wei replies, “fist-to-fist, sword-to-sword” to demonstrate the proper manners of a fight. Same with having the same odds.
If anything the lion dance’s real purpose was probably to just introduce some elementary ideas of etiquette in a fight and why misunderstandings may occur. And this movie certainly has a great deal of misunderstandings. If anything, it seems like the movie was trying to find excuses to have constant fights. Unlike say the Clones of Bruce Lee, the one benefit of a Lau Kar-Leung directed film is that the fights will always be good with “the real shit” being shown.
However, some situations just became ridiculous like Juying beating up the workers when she’s introduced or how she made numerous attempts to bust down Fei Hong’s school. The pacing felt off a lot for me where you just started to expect fights at every turn. The theater fight at the end also lasted too long for me. I think a huge problem with all these fights is that there’s no real lead up. They just happen.
The one fight though that is worth watching is the final one between Gordon Liu and Wang Lung-Wei. That fight is incredible, possibly one of my favorites in the history of martial arts films. Both guys really get to show off their stuff and you get to see some good Hung Gar from Gordon Liu. There’s some exceptional camera work involved like with the reverse movement and coordination or the legwork from Wang Lung-Wei. What I really like about it is the minimal amount of fake stuff. No wire fu, no mudshow flips, etc. While most of the movie felt boring, this is the one part that anyone who is remotely interested in seeing martial arts should seek out.
Speaking of Wang Lung-Wei, another real huge change is how he’s the hidden “good guy” here. In almost all other Shaw Brothers productions, Wang Lung-Wei is typically THE villain. In this movie, he’s an honorable fellow seeking to learn and make friends. It’s such a radical departure because you always expect this guy to murder someone or two in these movies. Hence, if you’re a fan of the guy like I am, you need to seek him out in one of his very rare hero roles.
Also, I have mixed feelings about Kara Hui here. She receives some great moments but her personality is egregious at times. It’s really hard for me to dislike Kara Hui because she’s so pretty and sexy but here she comes off very unreasonable at times. I dislike how she’s cast into the background completely towards the end just so that Wang Lung-Wei and Gordon Liu can have a 1:1 confrontation. She was supposed to gain exposure/experience by accompanying Wong Fei Hung but this just is another inconsistency in the script.
I think of the Gordon Liu Wong Fei Hung movies I’ve seen, I much prefer Challenge of the Masters because of the better message and more focused plot. The kung fu is sharper in this movie but the plot and characters are a bit all over the place and irritating to me.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.