Xue xing nan er

The extortion gang is shaking down the traveling group of hawkers. Rape is threatened so two fighters strike out in defense of everyone. At home, Tang Chia-Chuan is ordered by mother not to fight again.

Only the revenge plot is used more often than the fighter who cannot fight plot in martial arts movies. This movie is about a fighter whose mother does not want him to fight anymore because his father was a fighter and died because of it. You might remember this plot from Bruce Lee's first major movie and about 1000 others. This plot is problematic because, when the hero refuses to fight, he typically gets beaten and beatings have no entertainment value as far as I am concerned. Otherwise there might just be few fights. This movie gets around that by having many different characters fight. There is some comedy and some creativity added to the fights also. Most of the actors have 30-40 credits but even as a hard core fan I don't remember any of them.

In film making there are basic rules about cutting and editing. As an audience we are unaware of this as the pictures we see flow smoothly. When these rules are not followed the audience feels like the pictures are jumping around and it is hard to follow. That is a problem with parts of this movie.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as wide screen but small with dual English and Chinese subtitles. This is typical of laser disk sources.

Fans of this genre are always looking for something different, something memorable about the movie to distinguish it from so many that blur together. If you pay attention this one is a tad different in small ways but there is no single magic movie moment. I recommend it for all hardcore fans of the genre.