Yan ku shen tan

It's poodle-permed Byong Yu versus the world (dancing lesbian abortionists, a murderous bandit gang and corruption within his own police department) in "The Association", a weird, awkward mix of martial arts action and T&A from Golden Harvest Studios. The high point is a short but superbly choreographed clash between Byong and Hwang In-shik: this occurs roughly halfway through the movie, which thereafter struggles to reach an anticlimax. There's just enough cheesecake to be distracting and the fights are too few, but they're fine examples of GH's signature blend of Chinese and Korean fisticuffs. (Angela Mao Ying gets a chance to shine in the film's opening moments.) Nice-looking sets and costumes, too. All in all, "The Association" is fairly entertaining as long as you don't take it seriously...and how could you?

The movie starts out with Fan Yin's (Angela Mao) execution scene. She has short scene in the beginning where she kills her parents' killer (and later returns as detective "Fan Hwah" from the Central Police Bureau). There's corruption between the gang that runs the prostitution ring and the police, and she's ordered to be executed. Fan Yin asks her friend, and police officer Wong (Byong Yu) to avenge her, and her parent's death.

The prostitution ring is working inside a place called "Association for the welfare of young girls". It's supposed to be a legitimate organization, but there're all sorts of hedonistic activities going on inside the building. Detective Wong goes out to collect the evidence, and crush the prostitution ring.

The movie is about police corruption, gang prostitution, and fair amount of skin exposure for this type of film. The story is pretty good, and Byong Yu puts in a good performance.

Young Sammo Hung appears as detective "Tiger" in this film.

Story driven movie that has more than few good looking women, and few good action sums up this movie. Golden Harvest had high quality production, and this movie's quality is above average for a movie of this type. It's not a kung fu action movie as you might expect from the casts, but is still a pretty good movie.

Fan Yin (Angela Mao) kills her parents' killer, but there is corruption between the killer, a gang that runs the prostitution ring and the police, and she is ordered to be executed. Fan Yin asks her friend and police officer Wong (Byong Yu) to avenge her and her parents' death.

This movie has more sexual material than other films of its kind, but maybe that is just the influence of the 1970s. Of course, the plot revolves around a prostitution ring, so I guess it is not completely gratuitous.

The film has been called "a martial arts potboiler" and is said to rely more on its shock value and salacious material to sell itself than its fighting scenes. That may be true, but it is not without its good fights (one even before the opening credits) and it is a welcome addition to DVD with some decent subtitles. This film may appeal to the kung fu fan who was brought to the genre by Quentin Tarantino.

Angela Mao faces a firing squad in the opening scene. The rest of the movie is flashback. The plot seems to be - her dad is sick and in debt. He is forced to retire and is replaced by an idiot. The bill collector kills him and rapes his wife. Angela gets revenge. They execute her for his murder.

My warning is to read what I wrote above and save yourself the torture of this movie. I actually wrote a much longer review but I won't post it because it was not worth the effort to write and would not be worth your trouble to read.

The abortion scene drags this movie into the gutter, visually and for rating. The abortion has a song and dance number. Who knew an abortion could result in people dancing and singing?

Perhaps the best way to look at this movie is as a bad porno. The set up of this movie is really typical of the terrible porn that came out of the early 1970s. The movie makers were trying to avoid the censors, even trying to avoid being arrested for making sex scenes. The result was total lack of quality in every aspect. No sense trying to understand it at this point. Any way you look at it, I consider this movie a steaming turd.

"So what about the fights?" is the standard question by fans of martial arts movies from this era. They are nothing special and often lost in the darkness of the set or the filming process.

I rate this movie low and my recommendation is to forget about it.