Friday, December 4, 2015

Chinese Hercules (1973)

This is an interesting movie.  Yang Sze is not the hero, so the villain gets top billing here.  He is easily one of the most recognizable Chinese martial artists ever, possibly just under Bruce, Jet and Jackie.  He appeared in tons of films in this time period, and I believe he was always cast as a villain until late in his career.  I wonder if it was his idea to adopt the name "Bolo" from Enter the Dragon since he's almost always called that in his movies.  Heck, he even made into the fun Fight! Dragon series, which features him in the opening.  I need to finish watching that show.

Anyway, this is a pretty good movie featuring some great fight scenes.  Chan, our hero, accidentally kills a man (who pretty much asked for it) leaves town and vows never to use his martial arts again.  He takes a job unloading boats and of course the owner is corrupt.  This tests his vow time again until a mobster moves in and makes things even worse.

It all builds to a satisfying end battle between Chan and the villains.  Yang is presented as a total monster and it works well.  I'd like to see a nice print of it.  Corey Yuen Kwai handled the action scenes and as mentioned earlier, does a great job.  Good stuff.

No comments: