Die Todeskämpfer der Shaolin

THE GREEN DRAGON INN is a low rent kung fu flick that suffers from terrible presentation in the west: awful English dubbing, a pan and scan print that misses half of the fight choreography, and a soft print that makes everybody's face look blurred. It's a pity that the presentation is so below par, because this looks like it has the potential to be a decent film.

It certainly has a better plot than most, a retelling of a popular story about a murderer being transported cross-country to justice and the various thugs employed by the murderer's father who will do anything to see the criminal rescued. THE GREEN DRAGON INN features the talents of an above-par Lo Lieh, who doesn't get a great deal of screen time but is very good nonetheless, and Yueh Hwa as the determined hero.

It's very hard to review a film like this properly because the quality of the presentation has spoilt my enjoyment of it, so the review is mainly of the print quality rather than the film itself. Certainly this seems to be an action-packed movie with a thrilling climax, so it really deserves better.

After watching this film I realized there is no Bruce Le, Bruce Li, or any Bruce clone starring in it. The film has a tacked in video credit, so I don't know what is the original title for this film. It's a very good action film as a Evil Land baron's son murders a innocent family, and a Marshall is called in to take him in to be executed in the court of law. With the aid of a army of soldiers, the Marshall must fight the Land Baron's assassin and army who want the master's son. Lo Leih of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH has a good supporting part as a mystery man who helps the marshall out. The video box shows a photo from another Bruce Le film (I think it's a scene from BRUCE LEE'S DEADLY KUNG-FU) and the video box says "rated PG" but it's very violent for PG rating, it was probably "R" rating. Recommended for Kung-fu fans.

The son of a rich and powerful man murders a family. Yueh Hua and his gang have a difficult time arresting him and a more difficult time making sure justice is done. About 99% of the martial arts movies with the words "Bruce", "Shaolin", and "Dragon" in the title have nothing to do with those things and this one is perhaps the most blatant example with the alternate title "Bruce is Loose". It's a mixed blessing how this came to be. In the early 1980s a mom & pop VHS rental store popped up on every street corner in America and on the way home from work every Friday people would rent all the movies they could carry. The Asia movie industry found it could make millions on old films collecting dust. Two problems complicated things. First, movies are rectangular and VHS is almost square. The resultant VHS version of the movie had to be distorted or missing a part of the picture. Minimal effort was spared to solve that problem as quality was of no concern. Analog movies actually have the equivalent of 5k digital resolution but no television set of the period using scan lines instead of pixels could produce anything clearer than the equivalent of 0.32k resolution. More important was the marketing. American audiences had never heard of these movies and did not know the stars. That problem was easily solved by renaming the movie and putting a flashy picture on the box neither of which was required to have anything to do with the movie. Today I watch these movies and lament that the misleading titles actually prevent people today from discovering and enjoying these films. I am a hard core fan and spare no effort tracking down a movie but often I end up with four copies with different titles of the same movie or can't find a movie at all because a title search leads in many wrong directions. My biggest sorrow is the poor quality of the digital file. By now the original prints of these movies, if they still exist, have dried up to dust. Plus any original copy would have been played halfway to destruction during its original release. As bad as it is, were it not for the old VHS tapes these movies would not exist at all.

It is a pity that this film has been so badly misrepresented here as an alternate of some Phillipino hack film named for Bruce Le.

Green Dragon Inn is classic of the "old school" chop-sock 'fu film, a remake of an earlier King Hu film so respected that it was remade again as Dragon Inn in the '90s.

Produced by (Polly) Shaun Kuan Ling Feng, who also co-stars (she was in the original); probably directed by legendary Shaw Bros. veteran King Hu (who was at a low point of his career). the story is quite strong, with robust acting from all. Lo Lieh presents the best performance of his career.

The pan-and-scan of the existing American release hardly does this film justice. The pacing is very good, the fight scenes are excellent, the dramatic moments convincing. There is an indirectly presented political message in the film - a stable society must be grounded in law, not the whim of the rich and powerful - which remains true today. There are also moments of wry humor to remind us that the filmmakers know what they're doing, this is not a genre film that is "accidently" also a good film, but a good film that happens to be a genre film.

It is now available on DVD in a package with its original title. Definitely worth a viewing or two.