Rating:

Aka: BY HOOK OR BY CROOK

Stars: Sammo Hung, Lau Kar Wing, Dean Shek, Lee Hoi San (Lee Hai Sheng), Pai Piao, Meg Lam, Chan Lung

Director: Karl Maka

1978, Hong Kong

 

Dirty Tiger (Lau Kar Wing) gets a job; to find Crazy Frog (Sammo) who stole the invincible armour from his old wife and escaped. But Crazy Frog has already lost the Invincible Armour, and as Dirty Tiger wants it he releases and joins Crazy Frog. Soon a lot of people are after the Armour, a girl who always has a couple of extra arms (?) with her and is called the "Multi Hand Chick" by Mars, an one-eyed guy (Dean Shek), a White Brow Monk (Lee Hoi San) who knows Crab Fist, and many more.

 

It seems to me that the plot was made up during the filming. Generally, it’s about people cheating each other. It was directed by Karl Maka and the comedy is extremely silly, I mean there's people who get cactus plants on their butts and a scene (or two) with Samo getting used as a horse to drag the carriage. There's also a scene where Sammo is kicking butt and then he stands on his hands and his feet start dancing to the beat of a chicken/duck kind of music, then he continuous kicking butt (It is kind of Benny Hill like humour). I guess that was a secret technique of his. I find this scene hilariously funny, I just had to record that chicken/duck theme and listen to it once again and remind me of that scene.

Also lots of weapons (tiger hooks, butterfly swords, three sectional staffs, broadswords etc.) and as always, excellent fights from Sammo and Lau.

 

The movie gets a little confusing and the fact new characters appear all the time doesn’t make it easier. First one guy has the armour then he pretends selling it, then somebody cheats him and then somebody ells has it, but then it shows that that's a fake; all the time it's twisting and turning like this.

There are cameos from lots of recognizable stars like Yuen Biao, Karl Maka, Mars, Lam Ching Ying, Fong Hak On, Choy Chung Sun etc.

Lee Hoi San is impressive as the White Brow (Pak Mei) monk who crabs up people for fun.

Not very good, but as all Sammo movies it’s worth a look for the kung fu.

<<Back