Tai quan zhen jiu zhou

I won't waste your time by describing the plot for this, the other reviewer already did this quite well. I will however give you my opinion of this movie. This movie is basically anti japanese propoganda. The japanese are portrayed as incredably evil b**tards who have respect for nothing, as well as having very poor martial arts skills (groups of japanese men get there asses kicked by single women on more than one occasion.) The fact that the japanese fighters lose almost every (if not every) fight in the movie kind of takes away the suspense. The plot is actually quite solid and perfect for a kung fu movie though. The problem lies in the fact that there's not much fighting. When there are fights some of the fighting is quite good, but other scenes are choreographed badly. One scene angela mao takes on six japanese in a church and kicks all their asses. The problem is they show her fighting them one by one when they're all supposed to be attacking at the same time. I gather this movie was incredably cheap considering how cheap some of the sets are. They use the same village set for when they are in korea and when they are in china without changing it at all. Some scenes are filmed at real locations though, and they look good. Overall the only real problem with the movie is it's slow moving and uninteresting plot. Since there are few fight scenes we have to rely on the plot for entertainment and, well, I wasn't entertained.

one and a half stars out of four

The DVD version released by Crash Cinema was very poorly done. The mastering engineer must have been either drunk, asleep or not even in the room while it was being done. It looks like it was mastered from about a tenth generation copy and about halfway through the film, the audio synchronization disappears. The dialog is about 10 or 15 seconds behind the audio. If you're thinking about purchasing this DVD, please save your money. I remember seeing this film at the theater back in 1973. Also, the VHS copy of this film under the title of "When Taekwondo Strikes" looks better than the DVD, but the remaining several minutes of the movie are "missing". Where is the original camera negative?

STING OF THE DRAGON MASTERS (1973, aka WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES) is an unusual kung fu film set largely in Korea during the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and involves an ethnically mixed cast of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and American martial artists. Korean Taekwondo expert Jhoon Rhee plays the leader of the Korean resistance movement and his group includes a Chinese hapkido expert played by Angela Mao, a Korean Taekwondo expert played by Carter Wong, and an American student of the art played by Anne Winton, who has seen her uncle, a Catholic priest, abducted, tortured and finally killed by the Japanese occupying forces. ('The Japs have no respect for religion,' we are told.) A long-haired Samo Hung appears as one of the Japanese karate experts who takes on the heroes in several fights. (He also played a Japanese villain in King Hu's THE VALIANT ONES, 1974.)

The plot centers around the efforts of Rhee to keep his resistance movement alive after being exposed to the Japanese and get a list of his rebel group's members to their contacts in China. This involves lots of fights in the first half of the movie, including at least three in a Catholic church and one in a restaurant. The final battle, pitting the four heroes against the top Japanese villains at the Japanese headquarters in Manchuria, is particularly exciting and filled with great martial arts action.

The film moves quickly and is well shot (on studio sets mixed with actual locations), but suffers from unusually poor English voice dubbing. Worse, the constant stream of inappropriate music cues lifted from other sources is lathered on in the most heavy-handed manner, often drowning out the dialogue. Also, the VHS edition is full frame and severely cropped meaning that much of the fighting action disappears off the sides of the frame.

Even so, the film is worth seeing for the sheer number of superb fights, most of which feature Rhee and Mao taking on the Japanese. Mao is at her peak here and shows off the genuine skills that made her the queen of the kung fu movie for a spell back in the 1970s. The director is Mao's frequent collaborator, Huang Feng, and the movie was produced by Golden Harvest.

ADDENDUM (FEB. 10, 2008): Since writing the above review, this film has come out on DVD, under its original title, WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES, from Joy Sales as part of the Fortune Star/Legendary Collection line. The new edition is letter-boxed and in its original language, Mandarin, with English subtitles. The music track is very different and doesn't have the same problems that the soundtrack on the English dub had. Also, the subtitles make it clear that the Catholic priest and his martial artist niece described above are meant to be French, not American. The DVD contains the film's original trailer, which identifies the numerous martial artists cast in the film and their particular specialties. Watching the DVD was like seeing the film for the first time. Highly recommended.

I first saw "When Taekwondo Strikes" over twenty years ago via a panned and scanned (and dubbed) VHS copy, and at the time I didn't think too much of it. But recently I got the opportunity to see it again this time with an anamorphic widescreen DVD edition that had the original Mandarin track and English subtitles. This better edition may explain why my feelings about the movie improved. Certainly, the movie is not perfect. It has some of the clichés associated with old school kung fu movies (chortling villains, exaggerated sound effects, etc.) There's not a terrible amount of plot, which results in some lengthy slow spots. And the Japanese villains could have been made into stronger opponents instead of being shown to be (mostly) hopeless. On the other hand, despite the largely one-sided fights, the martial arts scenes aren't too bad, having excitement and coming across as fairly believable. Angela Mao makes for a charismatic protagonist, and there's fun seeing a pre- fame Sammo Hung as one of the villains. I'm generally not a fan of old school Hong Kong marital arts movies, but I have to admit that this one was, despite its flaws, definitely above average.

Jhoon Rhee should have made more martial arts films as he is one of the top practioneers of his style, Tae Kwon Do. He was one of a few people who taught Bruce Lee high kicks. Even so, this Asian movie from 1973 is a solid one. Most of the time in an Asian production, the fight sequences are speeded up and ridiculously so. "When Tae Kwon Do Strikes" is a bit different, as the choreography is executed in real time. In my opinion, this doesn't detract from the film's entertainment. I have been watching martial arts films for about 30 years but I hadn't heard of the above film until 2 years ago. It was worth the wait though.