Odd Couple
Director: Lau
Kar-wing
Year: 1979
Rating: 7.5
In Cantonese
Towards the end of the 1970's a new generation
of well-trained physical actors were coming into their own and they were
to remake Hong Kong action and usher in a Golden Age of Action in the 1980s
and 1990s. They were often the graduates of Chinese Opera schools but instead
of going into opera as previous generations had, they turned towards the
film industry. For a number of years, you can spot them in minor roles or
as extras in the Shaw Brothers and the Golden Harvest films. But thanks mainly
to Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, a new style of action that was clever, faster,
harder hitting, more acrobatic with a puckish sense of humor was evolving.
Both Jackie and Sammo surrounded themselves with a group of capable martial
artists who show up time after time in their films. Some like Lam Ching-ying
and Leung Kar-yan went on to become stars on their own while many like Mars,
Peter Chan-lung and Chung Fat remained valuable players who over time also
became favorites of many. Any time Mars shows up in a film, I tend to smile.
All of these are amazing to watch in an action sequence with their intricate
well-timed moves.
All of those mentioned appear in this film
with Sammo and Lau Kar-wing. Lau who was the brother of Lau Kar-leung had
a filmography going back to the early 1960s as an extra in many Shaw films.
And like Sammo, he was to begin choreographing films in the early 1970s and
then directing a few later on. He directs this film though Sammo helps with
the choreography and it has his personality all over it. Lau was to appear
in many of Sammo's films. He is remarkable in this one and has never received
the recognition that I think he deserves. Perhaps because he is so ordinary
looking with no distinguishing physical characteristics and rather bland.
Often, I won't even realize that was him in a film till I look at the credits
later on.
I began watching this two weeks ago and
bailed on it quickly because it had all the earmarks of being a dreaded kung-fu
comedy and within three minutes I had as much of Karl Maka as I could take.
But I gave it another go because it is Sammo at the height of his skills
and I need to watch his early films which for some reason I am lacking in.
Grimaced through the Karl Maka scene and Sammo as an old man with a red nose,
gray wispy whiskers and gray hair. Fortunately, Dean Shek doesn't show up
till about halfway through the film and by then I was dazzled by the action
performances. They are astonishingly complicated and fast - some undercranking
at times. And generally amusing. But it is a kung-fu comedy full of strange
looking characters with buck-toothed Mars named Potato, Shek walking like
he is on a horse with a few moles adorning his screwed twisted up face, Lee
Hoi-sang with his bald head and eyebrows going straight up, Billy Chan as
a hunchback, Huang Ha with eyebrows down to his chin and so on. So I bounced
back and forth between broad silly comedy that made me wince and some amazing
martial arts that are sublime.
The film actually begins with a short exercise
on weapons of China demonstrated by Sammo and Lau. It is like a public announcement.
There are 18 weapons, 9 long and 9 short and names them. This sets up the
film in which two old friends/competitors duel once every year with a long
spear from the King of Spears (Lau) against the King of Swords (Sammo). They
have been doing this for fifteen years with a timer set by Mars and Billy
Chan and it always ends in a draw. They realize they are getting older and
can't do this much longer. So, they agree to each train one student in their
form of weaponry and have them duel. Sammo finds a watermelon seller who
has the courage to go up against extortionist Lee Hoi-sang and after Sammo
burns down his house and business makes him an offer he can't refuse. Let
me teach you so that someday you can kill me. He is Wing and played by a
younger looking Lau Kar-wing. And the King of the Spear finds a boatman that
he thinks will do - played by a young looking Sammo.
Between all the silliness, there is one
incredible action set-piece after another. Some cute, some clever, some serious
- but the choreography is so precise, so well-timed, constantly in motion
- where one wrong bit of timing or a forgotten leap or duck and you get clobbered.
The spear vs sword displays are beautiful. I would love to know how long
they took to do these scenes and practice the entire thing. Later on, the
real villain of the story shows up in the form of Leung Kar-yan with his
gang of four assassins (look for Lam Ching-ying and Chung Fat) to get revenge
for the scars they gave him in a duel years before. Suddenly the film gets
very serious. Leung Kar-yan was one of Sammo's favorite men to work with.
Unlike most of the others he had no martial arts training but he could watch
a style of martial arts and be able to imitate it perfectly. His fight against
everyone young and old is the highlight of the film. The film is a great
display of martial arts and one more notch for Sammo who was on a run of
great martial arts films beginning with his directorial debut in Iron-Fisted
Monk followed by Enter the Fat Dragon, Warriors Two and Knockabout. More
were obviously to come.
