Rating:

Stars: Jackie Chan, Wei Pei, Yuen Biao, Li Li-Li, Sheck Kin, Whang In Sik

Director: Jackie Chan

1980, Hong Kong, Golden Harvest

 

When Tiger (Wei Pai) breaks his leg while training at his kung fu school, Dragon (Jackie) has to take his place in a lion dancing contest. Dragon’s team loses and he notes that classmate Tiger cheated them and joined the other team in secret. When returning home Dragon is punished and given the fault for the lost, but still he doesn’t say nothing about Tiger who still pretends to have a broken leg. But the truth comes up and Tiger is forced to leave the school. To earn some money he joins the rivaling kung fu school and is paid to save a mean kung fu master (Whang In Sik).

Dragon gets tired of his teacher’s cruel regime and is about to leave, but his master tells him to find Tiger and return. So he goes on the trail of his fellow classmate with a big white fan just like the one Tiger had to ask people if they’ve seen anyone with a fan like that. To save him he eventually has to fight the bad guys who’ve cheated Tiger.

 

This overrated movie really disappointed me in many ways. Firstly because people have given it a masterpice status. Don't get me wrong, it's not that it's bad but it really gets to much praise.

Jackie isn’t at his very best and doesn’t really get to do real kung fu. He also makes some uninteresting scenes to long (who cares about him taking a shower for 10 minutes). The best thing he does is the short form before the lion dancing contest. Well, he also shows how strong he is by lifting himself up with a rope while he holds his legs horizontally in the air and also some other hard stunts but that really didn’t make me go crazy of amazement as I prefer traditional kung fu fighting and forms.

Wei Pai's skills are wasted too.

Yuen Biao kick Jackie’s ass when fighting with one of those kung fu benches. He carries it everywhere he goes.

Li Li-Li has a stunt when doing her stuff but is still good.

Shek Kin (Han from "Enter the Dragon") has a role as a cop and doesn’t look as stiff as in "Enter the Dragon".

Whang In Sik has two fights showing his kicks and is the best thing (together with Yuen Biao) about this movie. His first fight-scene has him doing crazy kicking and gives a western feeling while he kicks everyone’s ass. The end fight between him and Jackie reminds me of "Drunken Master 2" silly ending as Jackie drinks something and gets invincible and starts kicking Whang's ass.

Lee Hai Sheng and Fong Hak On have villain roles here and help the rivaling kung fu school to make their evil deeds. Lee has a pretty cool hair cut but doesn't realy get to show his wild hand styles.

 

This movie also has some unfitting rock music that is thrown in and somehow ruins some moments of the movie, though it may only be the dubbed version that has it.

It may sound like I hate this movie, but I don’t. It’s pretty entertaining after all but people make to much of it and give it a lot of praise that underrated movies like "Shaolin Wooden Men" should’ve get instead.

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