Xun cheng ma

I am a huge fan of the $5.50 DVD bin at my local WalMart. Hopefully you have one at your local branch. You can find a bunch of campy flicks, a bunch of trash, and the occasional surprise. This movie is one of the surprises. My friend recently bought this one, and in thinking it would be another cheesy kung-fu laugh riot, I was genuinely surprised at how good it was. I watch a lot of movies, and as a result, I can almost always call how a movie will turn out; and if there's a plot twist, what it will be. Not this movie! The directing is brilliant, the plot is awesome, and the fighting is unbelievably inventive. If you see this one sitting around somewhere at a dirt-cheap price, get it! If you see it at full price, I would still recommend it.

Many of Hong Kong films have a backdrop of historical intrigue in the Qing Dynasty (circa 1644 to 1911). Golden Harvest's The Postman Strikes Back takes place a few years after this period in 1913 just after the establishment of the Republic of China with Yuan Shikai and the Northern Warlords fighting Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. The historical aspects behind this is quite fascinating (though only mentioned a little in this film) because Sun was originally elected the first Provincial president after the Qing Dynasty and then helped get Yuan elected as First President of the China Republic, was most likely coerced into doing this and later would rebel against this (Sun would go to Japan shortly after the failed coup and Yuan would die a few years later in 1916.) Back to the story: bandit Zhao Long holds the northern mountain pass named Laoma that is of great use to Yuan militarily and sends envoy Hu (Eddy Ko Hung) to persuade Zhao to side with Yuan.

Hu enlists the help of a courier named Ma (Leung Kar-Yan from Drunken Dragon) a stoic no-nonsense man whose own job is fraught with little money, unappreciative little bastards who do not appreciate the melted chocolate he has brought them and the fact that he knows his living is in jeopardy as transportation like the railroads become more commonplace. Even then he was reluctant to help Hu until his troublemaker friend Yao Jie (Yuen Yat-Choh) decided (or was it another reason …) to employee himself under Hu. Now there is a little confusion on why he eventually took this job. Ma was confronted earlier by his sister Guihwa (Cherie Chung Cho-Hung) who had told him that father sold her 15-year old sister to Shanghai and needed money to get her back. Unfortunately this plot angle did not go anywhere (several story lines are mentioned in the film without resolution or sometimes without even being alluded to again like this one and Ma's career demise).

For 300 taels of gold per person, four cases of an unknown matter need to be delivered to Zhao Long before his birthday of December 20th. If anything gets compromised they are ordered to blow up the contents and to not look at them. Hu hired Fu Jun to join the group -- a cigarette smoking, scarf wearing gambler (reminds me a little of Tatsuya Nakadai in Yojimbo) who has baggage of his own -- played by a skinny Chow Yun-Fat in an early movie role. Joining Ma are friend Bu (played by great character actor Fan Mei-Sheng) a man who is an expert with explosives, Ma's sister Guihwa, and Southern rebel Li Fu whom they save later in the trip and possibly has eyes for Fu Jun (another dissipated angle). They all band together to deliver the goods or perish trying. Several of them would choose the latter.

Several negative aspects hurt an otherwise interesting film. There are too many loose ends, disappearing characters and conflicting story lines with the narrative. This could have been because of the use of four writers including the director Ronny Yu for the script. There is also too much exposition that slows the middle of the story without any progressing of the story. Sometimes Leung Kar-Yan would be too wooden in his acting approach though sometimes his austere nature was appropriate. The only problem I had with the filming was with the night scenes because they are appear murky probably because they are filmed on location and at night.

However, I think there are enough positives to make this an enjoyable movie. The cinematography is excellent and the use of the camera was ingenious in many scenes of a very cold Korean landscape (of course if you notice this then maybe the adventure was stagnant). Ronny Yu's (Fearless, The Bride With White Hair, Freddy vs. Jason) direction is quite good and consistently chooses interesting shooting techniques with hand-held cameras in many exterior shots. Eddy Ko Hung's is excellent as the villain. Ideas were impressive from the ice-skating bandits to Fu Jun's wrist bow to exploding rats. The fight scenes are interesting if a bit short with Chow fighting two bandits at once with one standing on a platform attached to the back of his partner and an excellent finale with the unmasked ninja fighting the protagonist Ma. The penultimate action sequence with Fan Mei-Sheng is probably the best scene in the film with a Ramboesque and Wild Bunch feeling to it. Ultimately though, the cohesion of all the elements is lacking and a tighter script and faster pacing could have made this a splendorous film. Though the movie may not be sublime at least you get to see an exploding ninja and Chow Yun Fat in a non-starring role attempt Kung Fu with his aggressive scarf-style. You may also learn that a compass can save your life against underground enemies.

The DVD copy I have is the Fortune Star/Fox release. It has a good transfer and unlike the earlier releases from this label it does not have dubtitles. There are really no extras except trailers which is normal for the bare-bone releases of Fortune Star/Fox. Of an interesting note here is what Bey Logan of Dragon Dynasty has to say about this film and its Fox release: "I hope one day we can do Postman Strikes Back justice on a future DVD re-issue. … The Fox US edition, though technically decent, didn't have much in the way of extras." Of course, extras would be nice though I do not see Dragon Dynasty doing a better job of a transfer.

Ronnie Yu's powerful and sometimes savage account of the struggle between heavy artillery and the plight of man is an engaging romp, the high production costs and smart direction taking it a notch above other standard kung fu fare. We are taken back to the early days of the Chinese Republic, and a popular folk tale is revived detailing the adventures of four heroic dead-end types, sent on a secret mission to reach the Lo Yang Pass in seven days carrying a special secret cargo. Our mismatched quartet become patriotic heroes however when the cargo is revealed to be heavy arms destined for the notorious warlord Yue Sai Hoi in his quest to defeat Dr Sun Yat Sen's Nationalist Guard, forcing the group to leap into action to save self and country. Action wise the movie has divided moments: from the graphic machine gun massacres and the silly supernatural Ninja bits, to some high class kung fu confrontations featuring the undoubtedly gifted talents of Kar Yan, this time not so much beard as stubble.

Being a fan of Asian cinema (with a great love for Hong Kong cinema) and being a long-time fan of Chow Yun Fat, it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch "The Postman Fights Back". And I must say that this is a fairly mediocre movie, unfortunately.

It was nice to see a very young Chow Yun Fat here, and I actually think this is some of his earliest work that I have seen, at least that I can remember.

The story told in "The Postman Fights Back" is about Ma (played by Ka-Yan Leung) who is a postman back in the the early days of the Chinese Republic. He is hired to bring some mysterious parcels to someone, and joins up with a couple of traveling companions. The group undergoes a long travel to deliver the parcels, and are waylaid by marauders, villains and bad weather along the way. Everyone is not whom they claim to be. So who can Ma trust and what is in the parcels that he was given strict orders not to open? The plot in the movie was fairly simple and straight forward, bordering on being too plain and mundane, you might say almost boring actually. The dialogue, well it was staggering at times, but otherwise fairly ordinary stuff here from such an old Chinese movie.

As for the acting in "The Postman Fights Back", then people actually did good jobs with their roles, despite having a mediocre script to work with. There were some good performances being put on here and there. However, as for the martial arts, well... Some of the fighting scenes were an eyesore and straining to behold, while others were nicely executed and choreographed. Now, mind you, don't expect to see martial arts that you see in Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, etc. movies, because that ain't happening. And prepare yourself for some rather overly-painted sound effects for the fight scenes. I couldn't help but smiling at times because of the sound effects used.

"The Postman Fights Back" actually did have some nice scenes and some good cinematography every now and then, and that was one of the better things in the movie.

And without saying too much, then prepare yourself for a royal eye-candy treat when you see the two (black and white) ninja outfits that the main villain donned towards the end. They were off the charts, I was laughing so hard at that. Notice, in one of the close-up scenes, that the black, form-fitting shirt he wears looks to be a knitted shirt. Got to love stuff like that.

For a Hong Kong movie, "The Postman Fights Back" was fairly average as to be expected from a 1982 movie. But if you like Asian cinema, and don't mind older movies, and/or is a fan of Chow Yun Fat, then "The Postman Fights Back" is worth watching if you haven't already seen it, just to check it off the 'to-watch list'.

Kung fu wise, this movie doesn't offer a great deal. There is very little fighting in it, and the quality of it isn't great. Eddy Ko (the bad guy) is good (in terms of acting), and there are a couple of pretty girls, too, but ultimately the movie is quite dull. Chow Yun Fat has a couple of fight scenes, but his moves are unconvincing - one understands why he subsequently stuck mostly to gangster movies.

The main character, capable Ka-Yan Leung, hardly does any fighting, which is a great disappointment. The story has him as a traveling postman, who's delivering an important but fateful set of boxes to an evil lord. The result is tragic, and the "hero" doesn't do anything about it until he finally gets angry and takes out the bad guy. But the story is unsatisfying, doesn't have much entertainment value, and is generally rather dull.

5 out of 10.