By Hook or by Crook
Director: Karl
Maka
Year: 1980
Rating: 3.5
They say that
you can get used to anything over time. Pain and even heartbreak and it must
be true because I can sort of enjoy kung-fu comedies that used to make me
want to run out of the room. Sort of. They are by their nature idiotic displays
full of ridiculous pratfalls and silly faces but between all that is often
some marvelous intricate action choreography and many of the best actors
at action played in this genre from time to time. These were quite popular
during the late 1970s and early 1980s and a few of the major purveyors of
this were Karl Maka, Dean Shek and Sammo Hung. All involved in this film.
Maka directs and acts with Sammo and Shek acting as well. Throw in Eric Tsang,
Lam Ching-ying and Chung Fat and you have a hell of a cast. But it is still
a goofy kung Fu comedy scripted by Raymond Wang which just adds to the potential
horribleness.
And it doesn’t take long for the silliness
to begin in this period film. A thief in what looks like a ski mask breaks
into a house, steals money and uses marbles for his getaway. The owner calls
in the Sheriff Butcher Wing (Karl Maka) who is more devious than competent.
Maka is not known for his subtlety. He frames Skinny Gee (Dean Shek) who
is a thief into helping find the culprit who he thinks is the Flower Kid.
Shek has a face so rubbery with eyes going cross that you feel sorry for
his wife. It never stays still. He must get paid by the number of times he
changes expressions. Skinny Gee has an ingenious plan to catch the suspect.
The Flower Kid has a reputation as a savior of women in trouble, so he gets
the Sheriff’s sister (Lau Nga-lai) to pretend to be his wife and hauls her
around town on a rope with clothes’ pins shutting her mouth. Sure enough
someone intervenes – Fatso – no need to say who plays him. And he claims
to be the Flower Kid after stealing jewels right under the nose of Butcher
Wing. But Skinny says you aren’t the Flower Kid – your name would be Stupid
Melon.
Skinny gets put in jail and Fatso has to
break him out disguised as a woman and then they go in search of the real
Flower Kid (Wu Ma) – Skinny to arrest him, Fatso because he is his idol.
But when they find him he is a shadow of who he used to be and the Golden
Killer (Fat Chung) has been paid by a woman (Yau Pui-ling) to kill the Flower
Kid. Our two boys combine their efforts to get him back into fighting shape.
Well, I didn’t run out of the room but the fast-forward button was awfully
tempting. This was dreadful on every level. The comedy is just so stupid
and never-ending. If you think Jerry Lewis at his worst is irritating, multiply
that times five for Dean Shek in this. Just a parade of idiot faces. Sure
I expected this to some degree coming in, but not an avalanche of brain killing
pranks and pratfalls. But you hope the action will make up for it – not here
– basically a few quick and not very interesting fights with Sammo and then
the finale against Fat Chung is decent but nothing to write home about. It
was an endurance test that I barely passed. Eric Tsang has two cameos as
a gunslinger with a coin as an eyepatch and Lam Ching-ying helps in their
plan to grow the confidence of the Flower Kid – he doesn’t do anything. Well,
they can’t all be classics.