La furia de Jackie

Fans need to know there are three edits of this movie. Another possible title is "Cub Tiger from Kwantung." Other than that there is no way of knowing which one you have by looking at the box or titles. You have one chance in three of getting the one that is not that bad and two chances in three of getting the stinkers. If I could do video editing I could put together a fourth version that would be as good as any Jackie Chan movie (without needing any additional scenes). If there's a guy with a moustache at the beginning of your DVD then go out and buy another one. Both of the stinkers begin with the guy in the moustache. Any time you see Jackie Chan fighting this guy in the moustache (Kwang Yung-Moon) it is NOT Jackie Chan. The better version begins with Tien Feng and brother fighting Chen Hung-Lieh. The scene ends with Tien Feng escaping to raise his dead brother's child, who is the grown up Jackie Chan in the next scene. Though this is the better version it skips the scenes of the child growing up and tutored by Simon Yuen. Further problem is that in one version Simon Yuen is a borderline pedophile who puts the boy bare ass into a bag of snakes. The other version is far more "family oriented." My idea of the best (my fourth version) would be to begin the movie with the child watching the kung fu school practice. This version unfortunately seques into the snakes in a bag scene. Instead replace that segment with the scene from the other version with Simon Yuen holding a chicken leg out for the child to grab. The master/student scenes in this edit are not creepy at all. There is also a rape scene that comes and goes and even comes again after it was cut (if that makes any sense... really it was like that). Also in one version with Simon Yuen there are some totally unnecessary scenes where he is teaching Jackie's body double. Most important of all in this genre is the final fight. Both versions with moustache guy end with a fight with Jackie's body double. The good version ends with an eight minute long fight on a dock. This is Chen Hung-Lieh (and occasionally his body double) versus the one and only totally real Jackie Chan. This is a darn good fight. Fans of Jackie or old school martial arts movies need to see this fight. So get the right version and just rest assured despite some things being dumb by the time the beer buzz hits you will be watching some real good action at the final 8-9 minutes.

First off this is jackies first staring role. Secondly the producer quit the whole movie and left all the actors without a producer which means no movie. So if you add both those into account you have to finish the movie with what you have. This is a old movie and a young jackie.. Jackie does pull off a few good moves near the end on the dock fight if you watch closely and he's very agile. They added a lot of scenes after drunken master made it big. The blindfold fight, the training katas (drunken master clips) and a few other extras thrown in. Anything with the teenage jackie is jackie chan which most people know and the children and parent part is also part of the movie. The fighting in this is average but I found it pretty entertaining and the jackie double can movie quite well. There's a special edition of this movie with the real ending but I've never seen it. So try and get that version!

This movie came with another one, New Fist of Fury, which was a poor pseudo-sequel to Bruce Lee's original masterpiece. You'll sometimes see Snake Fist Fighter sold in mall stores as "Master With Cracked Fingers", complete with deceiving, fancy cover. Got mine from Wal-Mart, actually. Anyway, this movie features the always-watchable combination of Simon Yuen (you know.. he's ALWAYS the drunken homeless guy who whups everyone's ass with a bamboo stick) and Jackie Chan. These two you'll find in Drunken Master, Snake in Eagle's Shadow, many many others. Obligatory evil warlord kills Jackie Chan's dad in a duel, and he (his dad) leaves Jackie (that's what he's called in the movie, no original name given) with his friend and fellow warrior, who adopts him as his uncle. Young Jackie trains with Simon Yuen (known in this movie as "The Man Who Isn't There") to be a great kung fu guy. He has to use his skills when thugs reak havoc in his family's restaurant. Turns out these bullies are the obligatory evil warlord's henchmen. His uncle punishes him several times for fighting ("carry 50 buckets of water back & forth from the well, oh, uh.. catch these heavy flower pots.. and, uh.. oh yeah, stick your hand in this broken glass.") throughout the film, and it kinda gets annoying after a little while. There seems to be a slight incestuous undercurrent between Jackie and his adoptive sister, too..

Very weird. (similar to Fists of Fury in that the hero is tempted by a female member of his immediate family.. in Fists it was Bruce's cousin who wanted to hit it off. is this a recurring theme in kung fu flicks? I haven't watched enough of 'em to really tell.. if I see one more with that sorta stuff, something's wrong.) Okay, so Yuen fights Casanova Wong (a great veteran actor, usually in the comedy-type kung fu films), who plays an effeminate landlord who extorts money from Jackie's uncle. Not only does he defeat him, he adds insult to injury by farting in his face. Pretty typical kung fu humor. (Wong, inexplicably, eats spinach and uses his "Popeye Special.") After some disjointed flashback scenes and stock footage from Drunken Master, Jackie fights the obligatory evil warlord, and (suprise suprise) beats him. Breaks his neck, too. That's almost always how it works in these sort of films. It's an okay movie, actually.. Jackie's voice actor isn't too overbearing, and there are some familiar faces in the film too. It's one to pop in the old VCR now and then.

Teen age Jackie Chan stars in this exciting kung fu action movie.

Jackie Chan (Jackie Chan) has been practicing kung fu under the tutelage of his old master since he was young. He works hard both at his work, and on his kung fu. One day he meets a girl, and he's smitten right away. Bully tries to rape her, and Jackie intervenes. This sparks a feud between the gangs and Jackie. It's a duel to the death between the gang boss and Jackie while being blind folded for both of them.

Young Jackie Chan looks soooo good. He's a handsome young man. His good personality also shows in this movie. His moves are very polished for a 16 year old teenager. No wonder he became the premiere action star. This is an old school kung fu movie but is refreshing to see young Jackie doing his moves. He already looks like a master at 16.

Some of the action sequences are amazing in this movie.

Good if not great kung fu movie from the early '70s.

Apparently Jackie himself, merely 17 when this film was made, says to stay away from this movie. I shoulda learned that earlier. It's at least two movies Frankensteined together, and new footage (with the old master beating up the flamboyantly gay landlord, farting in his face and avoiding his Popeye-themed attack (complete with Popeye's theme music - calling all lawyers)) was added years later to complete the "film", such as it is.

Plot? Barely there. Jackie plays an evil warlord who kills one of his men (who squirts blood out of his mouth in an unintentionally hilarious scene reminiscent of Monty Python's Black Knight), whose young son (Jackie again) is raised by another former henchman, who does not want Jackie to be a fighter. "You want to destroy life? Well, kill flowers!" he yells, tossing potted plants at his wayward stepson. However, Jackie's been training in secret with a crazy old guy in the woods since he was 6 (in a series of disjointed and somewhat creepy flashbacks), and there's only so much he can take before springing into action, especially since people attack him and his sister on a daily basis. He fights through a bunch of generic thugs as the camera whips around randomly, the canned soundtrack saws away pompously and dubbed threats ("I will take care of you now! Hum!") assault the viewer's ears. Characters mostly pop up to get killed (foster dad, a young pickpocket), or disappear after a few scenes (Jackie's uncle and sister).

The editing is such a mess it's usually impossible to tell exactly what's going on. When Jackie's pickpocket "friend" (I put that in quotes because they only met three times beforehand) is threatened by being tied up high on a pole, Jackie fights off the thugs around him. We cut to a thug falling into the water, and then the pickpocket just falls from the pole he was shown to be snugly tied to (shown by a dummy falling towards the camera), a musical sting, and Jackie looking... kinda bummed. "Goodbye, my little friend." Then a suddenly shirtless Jackie points at the villain (actually, he points at the camera - most of the dialogue scenes are played in separate shots) and declares "YOU killed him. YOU are responsible for his death." I dunno, Jackie. Was he the one who made the ropes magically disappear?

The dubbing is horrid, the characters either having British accents or Brooklyn accents, neither of which match the tone well at all. It sure is weird hearing Jackie's voice dubbed over by somebody else, and the endless "Ho! Hah! Huuuh!" during the fights is the fine line between hilarious and unbearable. Every blow, even light smacks, get a loud *CRACK* sound effect, and at one point Jackie holds a conversation with a villain while we hear a hilarious number of loud *CRACKS* in the background!

And then there's the final battle with the warlord, now elderly and played by a tall actor who looks nothing like Jackie (same dubbed voice, though) and a fat guy who follows the Way of the Fish, which Jackie easily disposes of, Old Master cheering from the sidelines. Jackie and the warlord blindfold themselves, which is cool, but it mostly is a desperate attempt to hide the fact that even Jackie is played by a different actor now. The bad guy whips around and whinnies like a horse. It's that kind of movie.

Don't fret though, fans. Pseudo-Jackie beats the villain by knocking him over, breaks his neck by turning it slightly to the right - complete with spaceship sound effects - and Old Master says Jackie has earned the right to carry a blue flag. Jackie waves it triumphantly, the movie ends five seconds later, and the soundtrack grinds to a halt.

Only for people who want to see Jackie's first starring role. Other than that, you won't find any of the elaborate choreography and set-pieces you'd expect from Jackie, although some of the hand-to-hand stuff is pretty well done, from what you can see of it through the insane editing. You'll likely have more than a few laughs as well, albeit the uneasy kind.

Rated R for God knows what reason. The violence, save the blood squirt, is clean, there's no swearing, and a really cheesy attempted rape scene involves a fully clothed couple wrestling while the woman screams. Norway banned it, although in retrospect that was a really good idea.