Slaughter in San Francisco
Director: Lo Wei
Year: 1974
Rating: 5.5
Aka - Yellow Faced Tiger
This film directed by Lo Wei presents a San Francisco not often seen by
visitors – a San Francisco where everyone speaks Cantonese and practices
kung fu. Apparently, Lo Wei had initially hoped to use this as another vehicle
for Bruce Lee but the two had gone their separate ways by the time it got
to production. Still, Lo Wei opportunistically brought in Chuck Norris who
had faced off against Bruce in The Way of the Dragon. Other than that, a
young Sylvia Chang and the unusual setting for a Golden Harvest production
there isn’t much to recommend about the film. It has many of Lo Wei’s sore
points – a clunky disjointed plot and poor action choreography – but none
of his strengths – the visual style that he brought to many of his Shaw Brother
films. This film has been available for a long time in an English dubbed
version that reviews I read indicated had some bad camp value with Norris
speaking in a British accented dub – but even that small pleasure is missing
in this version.
Instead of Bruce Lee, Lo Wei turned to Don Wong (Wong Dao) for his lead
role as a cop patrolling the streets of San Francisco (sadly no Karl Malden
guest appearances). Don Wong had a solid if far from spectacular career in
many Hong Kong martial arts films from the 1970’s to the 80’s. He portrays
Wang, a stolid unsmiling cop, who is partnered up with an African-American
– called John Sumner in the US version but the cringe worthy “Blackie” in
the English subs. One afternoon they come across a woman crying for help
and upon investigating they witness two males trying to rape a Chinese woman
(Sylvia Chang). After beating up the culprits, Betty tells them it was all
a joke and they were just playing a game – clearly not one covered in Hoyle’s.
She is a spoiled ABC who prefers the company of husky white men with nice
cars and dangles cigarettes from her sulky mouth.
A few days later Wang’s partner is kidnapped by a group of white men and
taken to the beach for a beating – why? – who knows – but Wang shows up in
time to give them a kung fu lesson but kills one in the process. Instead of
getting a medal for saving his partner, Wang is booted out of the force and
has to of course take a job as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. I am only
surprised it wasn’t a laundry. Later Blackie is killed and the cops try to
dump it on Betty’s parents – but Wang investigates on his own. This leads
him to a narcotics gang headed by Chuck Norris – finally showing up about
half way through the film.
Norris was still fairly new to film and still played the heavy in those
days – and he had yet to acquire the fine subtle acting skills that he later
brought to Walker Texas Ranger. Here he is a typical thug adorned with cigars
and a fedora who says things like “I know two types of people. My friends
or dead people” or “Men from our family only play with women with yellow
skin, we never marry them.” With his shaggy hair and shaggier chest, he looks
like a stock porn actor from the 1970’s. At the climax, Norris and Wong take
it to one another and no prizes for those who guess who wins. The fight has
some good moves but is most interesting for the fact that though both take
a good beating no one seems to have a mark on their bodies.
The VCD quality is fairly poor – it is widescreen but with tiny subs that
are a chore to read at times and interior and night scenes are extremely murky.