Le Messager de guerre

The one line summary really sums this film up. The story was bland, characters boring, and fights only decent, but Postman Strikes Back had THE coolest ninja I've ever seen. He didn't use ninja magic or fly, but he had the biggest arsenal of ninja tricks ever. You've gotta see it just for that. Who doesn't love ninjas?

Being a fan of Asian cinema (with a great love for Hong Kong cinema) and being a long-time fan of Chow Yun Fat, it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch "The Postman Fights Back". And I must say that this is a fairly mediocre movie, unfortunately.

It was nice to see a very young Chow Yun Fat here, and I actually think this is some of his earliest work that I have seen, at least that I can remember.

The story told in "The Postman Fights Back" is about Ma (played by Ka-Yan Leung) who is a postman back in the the early days of the Chinese Republic. He is hired to bring some mysterious parcels to someone, and joins up with a couple of traveling companions. The group undergoes a long travel to deliver the parcels, and are waylaid by marauders, villains and bad weather along the way. Everyone is not whom they claim to be. So who can Ma trust and what is in the parcels that he was given strict orders not to open? The plot in the movie was fairly simple and straight forward, bordering on being too plain and mundane, you might say almost boring actually. The dialogue, well it was staggering at times, but otherwise fairly ordinary stuff here from such an old Chinese movie.

As for the acting in "The Postman Fights Back", then people actually did good jobs with their roles, despite having a mediocre script to work with. There were some good performances being put on here and there. However, as for the martial arts, well... Some of the fighting scenes were an eyesore and straining to behold, while others were nicely executed and choreographed. Now, mind you, don't expect to see martial arts that you see in Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, etc. movies, because that ain't happening. And prepare yourself for some rather overly-painted sound effects for the fight scenes. I couldn't help but smiling at times because of the sound effects used.

"The Postman Fights Back" actually did have some nice scenes and some good cinematography every now and then, and that was one of the better things in the movie.

And without saying too much, then prepare yourself for a royal eye-candy treat when you see the two (black and white) ninja outfits that the main villain donned towards the end. They were off the charts, I was laughing so hard at that. Notice, in one of the close-up scenes, that the black, form-fitting shirt he wears looks to be a knitted shirt. Got to love stuff like that.

For a Hong Kong movie, "The Postman Fights Back" was fairly average as to be expected from a 1982 movie. But if you like Asian cinema, and don't mind older movies, and/or is a fan of Chow Yun Fat, then "The Postman Fights Back" is worth watching if you haven't already seen it, just to check it off the 'to-watch list'.

I am a huge fan of the $5.50 DVD bin at my local WalMart. Hopefully you have one at your local branch. You can find a bunch of campy flicks, a bunch of trash, and the occasional surprise. This movie is one of the surprises. My friend recently bought this one, and in thinking it would be another cheesy kung-fu laugh riot, I was genuinely surprised at how good it was. I watch a lot of movies, and as a result, I can almost always call how a movie will turn out; and if there's a plot twist, what it will be. Not this movie! The directing is brilliant, the plot is awesome, and the fighting is unbelievably inventive. If you see this one sitting around somewhere at a dirt-cheap price, get it! If you see it at full price, I would still recommend it.

Kung fu wise, this movie doesn't offer a great deal. There is very little fighting in it, and the quality of it isn't great. Eddy Ko (the bad guy) is good (in terms of acting), and there are a couple of pretty girls, too, but ultimately the movie is quite dull. Chow Yun Fat has a couple of fight scenes, but his moves are unconvincing - one understands why he subsequently stuck mostly to gangster movies.

The main character, capable Ka-Yan Leung, hardly does any fighting, which is a great disappointment. The story has him as a traveling postman, who's delivering an important but fateful set of boxes to an evil lord. The result is tragic, and the "hero" doesn't do anything about it until he finally gets angry and takes out the bad guy. But the story is unsatisfying, doesn't have much entertainment value, and is generally rather dull.

5 out of 10.

No pun intended - before the Transporter we had others you had to deliver packages ... although in this case it is not people that are being transported. Well at least not in the boxes they have to carry, they would be far too small for that anyway.

Quite a good troop of people you get here. Although as I understand it, Chow Yun Fat was not the one we came to know and love in later years. No John Woo movies under his belt is what I mean. Apparently he was more of a romantic movie star back then. Funny I never saw him like that (no pun intended and King & I left aside of course).

The action is very well shot and the story is tight - well it is not much of a story, but more than enough to get you invested. It is about new technology being able to ... well get rid of a lot of people (again no pun intended). There still is time and the place to add a lot of action scenes. With a lot of violence and blood ... we wouldn't want it any other way ... right? Great soundtrack too btw ... felt like I had heard certain themes ... but it probably just means others have used stuff from this ...