Return of the Tiger
Director: Jimmy Shaw-feng
Year: 1977
Rating: 6.0
This kung fu film begins with Angela Mao walking
into a martial arts school in which all the students are thugs of a gang
headed by a man mountain of a gweilo (Paul Smith) who looks like an even
larger meaner Sebastian Cabot. Two of the men are practicing archery and
she grabs two of the flying arrows as a calling card and gives them all sass.
This needless to say leads to her having to take them all on. At one point
she basically levitates and catches two knives thrown at her and gets back
to beating them up. Admittedly, most of these guys look like they are living
on a diet of donuts but there are a lot of them. A nice scene for Angela
in a modern day crime film, wearing her hair short and her eyes bright. Then
she pretty much disappears from the film till the end. This was not unexpected
since the credits had her as a Guest Star. She was in ten films in 1977,
so chances are she was working on another one.
The film really belongs to Ho Tsung-tao - but better known to kung-fu
aficionados as Bruce Li. About five minutes after the death of Bruce Lee
in 1973, film producers started looking for the new Bruce Lee - hopefully
with a strong resemblance or if not his fighting style. There were many and
honestly I have never bothered to try and keep them straight or watch many
of their films. And in truth I had no idea that Ho Tsung-tao was one of them
- I came in because of Angela Mao. But he was probably the first and perhaps
the best of the martial arts stars caught up in Bruce Mania. From this film
it is pretty clear that he is very good - genial personality, incredible
acrobatic moves and lots of martial arts skills. I almost feel sorry for
the guy for getting stuck in Bruce Lee related films - here are some of his
titles - Bruce Lee Against Supermen, Bruce Lee - The Star of All Stars, Bruce
Lee -True Story, Bruce Lee the Invincible, Bruce Lee in New Guinea,
Bruce and the Iron Fingers and many more. He was a one man Bruce Lee industry.
Here he does not play Bruce Lee - but a mysterious man who shows up with
Angela as his partner. The two of them play one drug gang against another
gang - offering their services to both - getting them to kill one another.
Ok - that may sound a little familiar but if it was good enough for Kurosawa
and Sergio Leone, it should be good enough for Jimmy Shaw! Some well choreographed
action from Hsieh Hsing, who plays one of the main baddies. Three fights
stand out - the first with Angela, then a terrific one in which a gang of
motorcycle toughs who try and kill Ho with their motorcycles and a big finale
with pretty much everyone in the film all in the same place fighting everyone.
A slugfest. With Ho's fight with Paul Smith as a standout and Smith's fight
against Chang Yi in which they throw logs at one another.
But perhaps my favorite scene is when Ho is lured to a cargo yard and surrounded
by Chang Yi and about 20 minions. You expect a big fight, but instead one
of these giant machines carrying a huge cargo container slowly and I mean
slowly - you could eat dinner waiting for it - comes towards them - slowly
lowers and the cargo opens and about 20 men from the rival gang come scooting
out. And when Chang Yi's gang runs away, they all get back in and slowly
leave. Someone clearly thought this was a cool idea. Smith only seems to
have this one credit in a Hong Kong film but he showed up in a bunch of Hollywood
movies - Bluto in Popeye, in Dune, in Red Sonja and others. Angela
is back for this final fight. It is up on YouTube in a dubbed version but
the video is fairly clean.
