Shi fu chu ma

If you don't or can't get Jackie Chan, what do you do? Well it seems like hiring the guy who trained Jackie is the way to go. Or at least that is what they did here - no pun intended. The movie goes for an older guy who trains this new Dude to become ... well I guess Jackie Chan. It does not quite work - setting all in the now (well 70s that is) is giving this an edge to other movies who went back in time.

But this also opens up a whole new range of problems. Not as big as the other problems the movie has though. Like tone wise - this is all over the place. And not in a good sense. The fights are ok, though there is only one opponent that really sticks out. Of course you have the madness that is ... well a dance off and a beat off (no pun intended here - also beat as in fighting). Does this sound like fun? Well I reckon it can be - with the right expectations. Still just be sure you know what you let yourself into ... you've been warned.

Jim-Yuen Yu, Jackie Chan's real life kung fu teacher, stars in his first (and last) big screen fight flick as 'The Old Master'. Unfortunately, he left making his debut a little too late, and is doubled in all of his action scenes. With Jim-Yuen obviously struggling to fight off senility and arthritis, it is left up to Chinese-American Bill Louie to impress viewers with his martial arts skills; and this he does, but only towards the end of the film.

The wafer thin plot involves The Old Master being tricked into fighting, by his friend, who is secretly betting on the outcome in order to pay off debts. When the Master finds out, he shacks up with a disco-martial-artist (Louie) who convinces the old man to teach him the secrets of Kung Fu.

If you can get past the weak first hour (the highlight of which is The Old Master dancing with a fat woman to a disco rendition of Popeye The Sailor Man!!), there are some nifty fights in the closing moments, including a good roof-top battle, some weapon work and Bill Louie doing Robotic-Fu.

I recommend a few beers before viewing.

A man who runs a martial arts school cannot pay his gambling debts so he gets a 74 year old man from Hong Kong to come and fight for him. He sets up some fights and bets on the old man and now wins. The only thing good I can say about this movie is that Yu Jim-Yuen looks good for age 74. I mean just looks good, not fights good because a stunt man does all his fights. He looks particularly good sipping tea. He looks so good sipping tea that there are about 100 shots of him sipping tea.

Bill Louie can fight, perhaps, but he did not fight anyone in this movie. Various stunt men stood in his vicinity and watched him throw some kicks and punches. The stunt men seemed to have trouble standing up and kept falling down for no reason I could see. Bill wants the old man to teach him martial arts. He takes him to where he works. He has a job using an electric drill to drill holes in a board. The old man never teaches him martial arts but Bill seems to get better at it because even more stunt men fall down watching him practice, even the fat stunt men.

I am in total disbelief this movie was ever made. Where did the money come from to make a movie starring a 74 year old nobody who can't act let alone fight as a martial arts actor? Every fight scene in this movie is one of the worst fight scenes ever with the fight scene in the disco taking top honors. Make that almost every fight scene. Somehow the fight on the roof was actually good. So how does that happen? If one fight scene can be good then what happened to the rest?

For fans of the genre this is a must see for how bad it can get. Have a good movie cued up to watch next to get the bad taste out of your eyes and ears.

So I picked this movie up cheap more out of curiosity than anything. Hopefully no one will ever be sold on the movie purely because of it's claim to feature the real life teacher of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung as you can even tell from the front cover that the guy is old enough to break a hip getting out of bed never mind performing kung fu.

The movie is about as cheap and cheerful as you'd expect, personally I was disappointed by the fight scenes which lack any sort of imagination. The scenes involving "the old master" in particular are poor as they all involve an obvious stunt double and therefore have to be filmed from behind his head.

Having said all this the film still passes the time OK and US Karate Champ Bill Louie does reasonably well in his fight scenes adding a bit of much needed oomph to the film including a reasonable roof top battle.

The film is poor but you could probably guess that for yourself - what it does have though is some mildly entertaining action and a truly awe inspiring bad disco scene featuring a Hi NRG version of Popeye the Sailorman which is almost worth the price of purchase alone.

The Old Master, apparently, is so old that virtually all his fight scenes are filmed from the back, with "the master" wearing a variety of stupid hats. Of course, none of those scenes are actually him, but a stunt man (actually Yuen Biao, as it turns out).

The movie is passably entertaining, if rather boring in places. Its main saving grace is Bill Louie, whose very decent fight scenes keep the movie from being a yawn-fest. All the excitement, as is typical with several Kuo movies, is to be found in the last 20 minutes, but ultimately it disappoints. One would have thought that they were also going to fight the old master from the rivaling gym, but no.

All in all, the martial arts conflicts in this movie lack any and all narrative motivation (except perhaps for the first part, with the betting), which is a shame.

The English dubbing isn't great, either - for one thing, Bill Louie makes all these Bruce Lee sounds, but they don't fit his lip movements... Oh well - we should be used to this kind of thing by now.

5 out of 10.