Dubbed

After the huge success of The Chinese Boxer in 1970, Jimmy Wang-yu broke his contract with the Shaw Brothers to go independent. The Shaw Brothers sued and won the case forcing Wang-yu to produce most of his films in Taiwan. Taiwan was making some fine martial art films at the time and had a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera, but it was not the Shaw Brothers with all their resources and distribution network. Taiwan did not have the budgets or the quality control of the studio. Most of the Wang-yu films that I have seen post-Shaw are sloppy, poorly scripted but often still good fun. Seven years after leaving Shaw, he returns to the Chinese Boxer. But really in title only. He does not play the same character nor does it seem to be in the same time period. What it does have in common is that the Japanese are once again the villains.



This is no classic as the first one is. It has a plot that seems pointless and it meanders about for the first half till it finally settles down for some whacky creative action. Wang-yu who also directs this throws together some truly bizarre action set pieces that are well-choreographed but memorable mainly for their weirdness. Wang-yu was having fun with this one.



The Japanese are as usual up to no good. They want to increase their influence in China by bribing Chinese generals. They do so with one general but a Lady Fong is sent with gifts to another general to make sure he remains loyal. And all along the way the Japanese send killers to stop her. And Wang-yu keeps popping up to stop them. In the first half Wang-yu nearly disappears as it shifts to a tournament in Japan which has Phillip Ko and Kam Kong as two of the contestants. It feels like it goes on longer than a Tolstoy novel but isn't as interesting.


The Japanese are looking for someone who can kidnap Lady Fong (Chin Chi-min) and stop Wang-yu. A Kunoichi (female ninja) played by Emily Chang is directing the search. But of course, no one can stop Jimmy Wang-yu because it is his damn movie. Not the two Muy Thai boxers (Blacky Ko, Ricky Cheng), not the guy with a zillion throwing knives (Wang Yung-sheng), not Kam Kong and his deadly staff, not Black Crane (Lung Fei) and his assorted guns and not even the three zombies that the Kunoichi brought to life. Wang-yu is the man whether dynamiting zombies, standing high on top of a pole, making idiots of the Thai fighters or somehow managing to create a bunch of dummies that look just like him to fool Black Crane. A really good second half.

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