Shao Lin men

Funny how most of the DVD covers for "Hand of Death" has Jackie Chan all over it, despite him only having a supporting role in the movie. But his face sells.

Regardless, then "Hand of Death" is one of the more interesting movies to Jackie Chan's impressive movie list, prior to making it on an international scale.

The story in "Hand of Death" is fairly simple, yet straight to the point. It is a story of revenge and for the downtrodden to stand up against their oppressors. The story doesn't really leave much to the imagination and requires absolutely nothing from your intellect. This is straight from point A to point B; and beating up everyone in between these two points.

The fight sequences were good, although some of them were painfully choreographed, where you saw the opponents, just waiting for the kick or punch to be thrown. And, of course, the sound effects here are hilarious - as they tended to be in many of these old action movies.

Tao-liang Tan was doing quite a good job in this movie, and it wasn't Jackie Chan who was in focus in this movie. As much as Sammo Hung Kam-Bo used to make great movies back in the day, then the buck-teeth he had to wear in this movie was just a bit too over the top. It was also good to see Wah Yuen in the movie, despite a very small and brief appearance only, not to forget about Biao Yuen as well.

"Hand of Death" is well worthy of a place in the movie collection of anyone who is fan of martial arts movies (or Jackie Chan's movies). This is simple, yet entertaining entertainment.

Early in John Woo's career as a director in Hong Kong, he had the auspiciousness to direct three of the seven fortunes in Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung in their first movie together Hand of Death (1976: Chinese Title literally means Shaolin Gate) though much was not made of this at the time because they were all struggling to make a career. They have yet to work together again in such a capacity though they have said nothing but kind words about each other since. An interesting point, in hindsight, is that the star of the film is none of the three (it is hard to spot Yuen Biao as his role is of a stunt double and bit actor) but Korean export and Tae Kwon Do expert Dorian Tan Tao-Liang.

Dorian Tan Tao-Liang stars as Yun Fei a Shaolin trained fighter looking to find Zhang Yi (John Woo) and escort him through White Stone town and across the White River. Zhang holds a map of all Qing bases in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in southeast China. He can get a hold of Zhang by contacting pupil Chiu Guo. However, when he is found, he has already been arrested and ready to be beheaded by the Manchus led by a traitor of the Shaolin Shih Xiaofeng (ubiquitous bad guy James Tien: Fearless Hyena, Winners and Sinners) who has taught himself White Crane Soul Chaser Style (he is the titular Hand of Death). Even though his Kung Fu is superior, he has the additional help of Eight Bodyguards with different styles and two top ranking guards in Smiling Fox and Du Ching (Sammo Hung who also does the stunt coordination) whose overbite is quite preposterous and resembles a "hopping vampire" though he is trained in tiger and crane styles.

Yun Fei gets the assistance of a woodcutter Tan, who helped him earlier to get past a roadblock and dispose of a body (a true friend helps you get rid of a corpse). Tan's elder brother was killed by Shih's men. Tan also obtains the help of "The Wanderer" (Yeung Wai) an expert swordsman who accidentally killed a prostitute he was in love with also because of Shih and would have given up his sword for good if it was not for Yun. These men will help Zhang Yi get across the river to get the plans to help once and for all defeat the Qing Empire and restore the Ming Dynasty (the plot of the Qing Dynasty as bad guys is one of the staples of Hong Kong martial art movies like Heroes Two, Royal Tramp and Iron Monkey).

Many will have bought, borrowed or rented this movie because of the presence of Jackie Chan. He originally was only supposed to have a stunt man role (helped hired onto the film by his "big brother" Sammo Hung) but as John Woo found one of the Korean actors lacking in the physical department, he replaced his part with Jackie Chan and expanded his role according to an interview with Lee Server in "Asian Pop Cinema" he stated he "changed the whole script to focus more on him and show his great skill." though there might be some fraudulent hindsight with that statement. Jackie originally had been the stunt coordinator for Woo's first film Young Dragons (1975) that came out a year earlier. Jackie did get hurt on the film, getting knocked unconscious after being pulled by a cable while being kicked by Dorian Tan and landing and hitting his head on a rock (though this would not be as bad as his most famous accident in Operation Condor where he almost lost his life).

Others might watch this because it belongs in the oeuvre of John Woo. It is still very early in his career (his fourth film in two years of being a director), but you can see traces of his talent. There are some nice hand-held scenes, a little use of slow motion and hints of "heroic bloodshed" elements (though this would come to blossom in Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979)) like an early scene when Jackie Chan and Dorian Tan first meet which seemed to hint a certain homoerotism (or else those were some of the most strange smiles I have ever seen), but then failed to capitalize on it later in the film.

Overall, this is a decent, yet unspectacular film. The direction is solid, yet it does not feel like a John Woo directed movie. The scenery of the Korean hillsides is absolutely beautiful and helps makes this movie easier to watch. The story is mediocre, but not too many glaring holes in the story. The Kung Fu ability is give or take. The kicking of Dorian Tan is beautiful to behold, his punching ability and forms are good but not great. Jackie Chan is also awesome with his fighting and you get to see him use a spear the Little Eagle God Lance as it is called in the film (which that and the staff are the traditional weapons that Jackie is best with). The highlight fight scenes of the movie are when Jackie fights several of the Eight Bodyguards and later when Dorian fights Sammo. The latter is especially impressive because of Sammo's willingness to hurt his body to make Tan look good. James Tien is not much of a martial artist, though his acting if fine as he is the consummate Hong Kong bad guy, so his hand-to-hand combat scenes are a bit pedantic though he has one scene wielding a sword that was good.

In China, the Shaolin men are hunted down by a powerful warrior who wants to rid the Shaolin men from China and puts death threats on any shaolin men found. At a remote training camp the last few shaolin men train, their best student (flash legs tan) is given the task of taking down James Tien and his reign of terror. Along the way he befriends Jackie Chan who appears as a farmer however Jackie disappears (reappearing later on).

He arrives at the main arena (Where James Tien is) and tries to take on Tien, but fails dismally - his shaolin techniques are useless against Tien's extended iron claw. When Tien beats him, he leaves the rest to his eight bodyguards, each mastering different weapons such as swords, shields, staffs, etc.

Half-beaten, Flash Legs Tan goes to a village and discovers Tien's men are taking apart the village and pillaging anything they can to scare the villagers into submission.

Tan befriends two people along the way, including a brilliant swordsman who has never drawn his sword after he failed to protect his wife.

The two men meet up with Jackie again and they convince themselves to stop Tien now or not at all and start training (which I found the best part of the film).

The film as a whole is a good one, though pretty slow in places, the fight sequences are on a par with later movies - though expect overly long fight sequences.

From the 'Golden (Harvest) age of kung fu comes this old school period style film from a bunch of young guns lead by director Wu Yu Shang (later to become famous as John Woo) featuring Tao Liang Tan (Dorian Tan) James Tien, Chan Yuan Lung (Jackie Chan), Hung Kam Bo (Sammo Hung) and Biao Yuen (Yuen Biao). Good solid stuff with Woo adding some touches of class with some nice scenic shots wrapped around the usual broad brush story and frequent action. Being 'old school' means the action is generally rather contrived and stiff, two guys going through a set series of moves and counters in a kind of rythmic dance, but it seems to improve as the movie progresses (either that or this viewer became less discriminating). A taekwondo champion in Korea, Tan was renowned for his outstanding high kicking technique, which is impressive, however he's not much of an actor and nothing special to look at. James Tien is far more charismatic in the lead villains role, with Hung providing trademark support as a semi comedic henchman. Jackie Chan fills one of the two main friend of the hero roles and gets a couple of spots to show his wares, including what may be the best fight sequences in the film, as one of his adversaries has the most interesting weapon in the movie, a sort of sword blade on the end of a chain. Yuen Biao has a minor role, but was mainly on hand to act as stunt double for the two leads apparently If pre Bruce Lee 70s kung fu is your bag, then this won't let you down.

I don't know about other people, but I don't imagine I would've come across this had it not been an early John Woo film that also happened to include Jackie Chan in small roles.

It's interesting to see three action movie icons honing their skills, and the film as a whole is watchable, if a little dull and by the numbers in parts (the opening half or so is particularly slow).

It gets better by the second half, and as you'd expect from a classic martial arts film, there's some pretty good action right near the end that's worth sticking around for. I'd say that as long as you go in with moderate expectations, there's enough here to make it worthwhile.