The Filthy Guy

                                                  
Director: King Weng
Year: 1978
Rating: 5.0
Dubbed

For some reason Sammo Hung slipped over to Taiwan for this throwaway kung fu film that is a nitwit comedy with a fair amount of traditional martial arts. The timing feels strange as it was after his first two directorial films and between the classics Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog and Warriors Two. At any rate, it is an opportunity to see Taiwanese star  Carter Huang match up with Sammo. They had appeared together in 1976 in Shaolin Traitorous but at the time Sammo was still playing secondary villains and he has a decent match-up with Huang. By this time, Sammo was on his way to becoming a star and the roles are reversed. For the most part though, these two stayed in the parallel film worlds of Hong Kong and Taiwan.



There is really nothing very special about the film. A mid-level low budget kung fu film but with the two big stars. Sammo plays a genial simpleton who is a servant to his Master Huang (Sammo is named Dirty Head in the dubbed version). Huang is the villain here, a swaggering asshole proud of his kung fu abilities. When two friends come over for a friendly match, he kills one of them. His kiss-ass aide played by an extremely annoying Dean Shek tells him that there is a prophecy that he will be Emperor of China. But there is one problem. His servant Sammo may get their first. Easy solution. Kill Sammo.



But not so simple. Sammo has been watching Huang practice for years and as we know from many kung fu films, that is all you need to become an expert. Sammo escapes to a temple and this is where the comedy kicks in and the audience groans. But he masters hard head kung fu and sets off to join the rebel army led by ex Shaw star, Yueh Hua in a small part. Along the way he picks up three men as followers. Wait a second, one (Wong Ling) is definitely a female in disguise. And hold on, another one (Au-yeung Ling Lung) is as well. Sammo never picks up on this. At one point Au-yeung has to disguise herself as a woman.



Some solid action, a few surprises but when they are not fighting, you may want to hit the fast-forward button. Sammo also pulls a Tarzan, but not with elephants but with charging bulls to save the day. Directed by King Weng and choreographed by Chen Hsin-I (To Kill with Intrigue, The Killer Meteors). Btw, Letterbox and IMDB has the year for this as 1972, but the Hong Kong Database has it at 1978  which makes more sense. No way was Sammo starring in a film in 1972.