Le Héros magnifique

This has everything you want from a classic kung fu film - lots of superbly choreographed action, plenty of cheesy but fun humour, and even a reasonable plot, which actually gets quite nasty at times. The fighting really is the main reason to see it though, it really is something to behold. Plenty of somersaulting, using props, and crazy moves with ridiculous names, theres even a bit of weapon fighting too. The film never gets the coverage or respect it deserves unfortunately, but if you read this, I hope it will move you to watch it, love it, and tell all your friends. Trust me, if you're into old style kung-fu along similar lines to Drunken Master, you're in for a treat.

Magnificent Butcher is one of those classic Kung Fu movies - the ones with all the camera zooms and overly emphasized hitting sounds like sound like twigs breaking. Sammo Hung is Butcher Wing, a somewhat clumsy and confused butcher...who also happens to know Kung Fu. Through plot machinations worthy of a daytime soap opera, it is Butcher Wing who must defend his dojo and the baseless accusations against him.

There's far more Kung Fu in this movie than actual movie. This is a good thing. The fights are amazingly choreographed and never "cheat" like so many movies of its kind do today. In other words, instead of seeing flashes of action which are cut together to make a fight scene, the entire scene is played out in a master shot where you can watch these athletes in action.

The best place to start signing the praises of this truly "magnificent" film is to look at the names of all those involved with the movie. A venerable who's who of Kun Fu movies past and present rounds out this film.

The film is directed by Yuen Woo Ping, who would later become the master of fight scenes in such movies as The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Once Upon a Time in China series, Kung Fu Hustle, oh and he also directed some great films such as this film and The Buddhist Fist.

The film's screenplay is by Wong Jing, who's notorious for his hit or miss HK films. The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk and Meltdown stand out in my mind as his best films, and from the humor shown throughout this movie it's obvious that Wong Jing had a hand in it, he is definitely "on" in this movie.

The Magnificent Butcher stars Sammo Hung, who unless you were living under a rock in the 1970s and 1980s you should know as one of the more competent kung fu movie stars of his era. Sammo plays the title character "Butcher Wing" (Lam Sai-Wing) one of the more notable of the real life disciples of Kung Fu hero, patriot, and Chinese healer Wong Fe-Hung. Butcher Wing getting his niickname as he was a butcher by trade in his day job, which often leads to many funny butcher jargon jokes during kung fu scenes in movies in which Buther Wing is a character. While not as funny as some of the double entendre fight dialouge in Once Upon a Time in China 5, there is a humorous scene in Magnificent Butcher where Sammo gets a lesson in cooking, mistakenly thinking he's getting a kung fu lesson. Sammo holds his own as Butcher Wing he has the build and demeanor for the part, and quite honestly as this is the only movie I know of featuring Butcher Wing as the main character, Sammo Hung as a big name actor was a good choice for the Role.

Tak-Hing Kwan makes a brief but memorable appearance in his typical role at the time of Master Wong Fei-Hung. This was THE guy, this is who Chinese movie-goers associated as Wong Fei-Hung before Jet Li revived the role in the Once Upon a Time in China series. Tak-Hing Kwan plays and older, queue-less Wong Fei-Hung, but a Wong Fei-Hung who is still a master physician and martial artist nonetheless. Yes this is the movie with the famous scene of Wong Fei-Hung demonstrating calligraphy as a self defense technique. The movie is worth seeing for this scene alone, even if you're not a fan of Sammo Hung you will get a kick out of Tak-Hing Kwan's defensive calligraphy style.

Yuen Biao is also in this gem of a film, one I highly recommend seeing if only to see what Wong Fei-Hung films were like prior to Jet Li. The 1970s and 80s were filled with low budget pure crap films, and rest assured this film is not one of them. This is a rare gem from that era, one that any kung fu fanatic must see.

I really like this movie for a number of reasons. Way back in my early teens this was the first time I found the legend that it Samo Hung, and his magnificent brand of kung fu comedy. This film holds up well today probably because of the stellar crew behind the scenes including the legend Woo-Ping Yuen. Hung here plays Butcher Wing' the apprentice in a dojo who constantly finds himself caught up in mischief. Wing gets caught up in a series of events that conspire to make him enemy no.1 and lead to some truly amazing fight sequences that truly have to be seen to be believed. Where this film is a departure from the traditional historic kung fu movie is there are no grand themes or sense of the epic just a nice tight small story and some incredible scenes all laced with some incredible physicality both of the violent and comedic nature. A true kung fu classic. Enjoy it again and again.

I'm usually very picky about which films I buy for my private film collection, because I have limited amount of space and no free spot for bad films, so I guess it was a bit of a gamble buying the film box from Eureka Video with three of Sammo Hung's films. But, then again, with Sammo, you know you'll get entertainment and some good kung fu. And kung fu you got, from beginning to end, you can't really complain about this film not having enough fights, it's filled with it from beginning to end.

So why do I only give it a 7 when the fight scenes are so great? The fight scenes alone are 9-10 points worthy and I was entertained all the time a fight started. The story however was shifting in tone all the time, from light-hearted comedy to brutal murder. Growing up with film from US and England, I guess I have a limited view of how comedies and actions should work. Although, I've seen quite a few Hong Kong action comedies from the 80s and they did get less violent for the next decade. Just like the other films in the Sammo-box, there's some deaths that just doesn't feel necessary compared to what the rest of the story is.

The film also take place in an alternate universe where people are slow-minded and easily fooled. Obviously it wouldn't have been a film if people would've explained stuff to the end, instead Sammo beats up a stranger because someone else called that person a thief. That person then tell his master that's a kung fu fighter that Sammo called him a "phony" and lots of other bad things about his school. The Kung Fu master then goes to Sammo's Master and begins to fight him even before asking if any of it is true. Sure, we get an amazing fight scene involving a brush. But looking through the film, there are so many liars that get away easily while some other people end up in brutal fights because of them.

I really loved the relation between the drunk beggar and Sammo's character and reminded me of Drunken Master (same director). His comments during the fights as well as his silly grin made me chuckle a lot throughout the film. I also think that the titles of this film and another film from the box, The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977), had some strange titles to them. We didn't see Sammo do much butchery at all in this film, just carrying some pigs in the beginning of the film. And the Iron-fisted monk, there wasn't really a specific iron-fist through the film, just lots of normal punches. At least this film had some more special fists/palms to it and would probably make more sense if it was called "The Iron-fisted butcher" or something like that.

A slight spoiler ahead - but was the father of the rapist/murder son really a bad guy? All he wanted was to avenge his goddaughter and son for their deaths, and it looked to me that he never really got anything explained to him what really happened.

Don't think too much about the story while watching the film, enjoy the fights.