Yong zhe wu ju

"Dreadnaught" is a consistently entertaining flick about Mousy (Yuen Biao), a hapless and clumsy coward who stumbles his way into plenty of trouble. While trying to collect a debt, he inadvertently runs afoul of a homicidal lunatic called White Tiger, and spends the rest of the movie being stalked by this freak. The flick is a very early attempt at a kung-fu/horror hybrid, with White Tiger sporting spooky Chinese opera-style make-up and frighteningly leaping into frame time and again. Of course, once he sneaks up on folks he karate chops them rather than stabs them. Still, the guy who plays White Tiger is genuinely creepy, and you really feel this guy's menacing presence. Yuen Biao is great as the goofy Mousy, tripping and falling his way in and out of danger. The fight scenes are excellent, played about half for laughs and half seriously. Add in Kwan Tak-Hing in his classic role as Wong Fei-Hung, and a couple of gross scenes involving ripping heads off chickens and cockroaches, and you've got the makings of a very intriguing kung-fu flick. If you're a fan of the slap-happy style of fighting perfected by Biao, Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan, and you like old school kung-fu stories, this one should be right up your alley.

Aug 21

Yep Dreadnaught is a fantastic martial arts comedy action film, it stars Yuen Biao and Leung Kar Yan.

Some amazing stuff here especially from Yuen Clan actor Yuen Shun Yee as the villain of the piece, Yuen Cheung Yan is also in the film along with plenty of regulars.

I love this film, it is extremely rare and expensive to buy, but its worth it, trust me.

Apparently the Steven Seagal film Under Siege was going to be called Dreadnaught but they had to switch titles due to this film.

9.5 out of 10.

In a hotel room in Kunming, China, 2005, four western tourists were getting ready to go out for that day's restaurant round, then this movie was on by accident - and we couldn't stop watching! We actually laughed at the lame slapstick, the "lion dance" was terrific, the energy - as mentioned in another review - was perfect throughout! Excellent work.

Now I am at IMDb trying to check out this film, you see, we had to go 15 minutes before the ending to get to the restaurants before they closed, which was surprisingly hard to do with a random Chinese kung fu movie. We made sure to snap up the movie title, I'm going to watch this all the way.

Then I see here it's from 1981 - which wasn't expected at all. Very good film, might look like your classic low-quality run of the mill kung-fu, but believe me, this is a notch above the rest!

If I'm being honest, this movie peaks right near the start and fails to completely live up to the insanity of that first action scene. It opens with such a simple, brutal, thrilling, and kind of darkly funny brawl, and I was prepared for something genuinely masterful if it maintained that energy.

The rest of the action is good, but never as great as at the start. The whole movie gets more ridiculous, surreal, and even fantastical as it goes along, and I thought most of the ride was decent. It made things pretty unpredictable, and that snappy Yuen Woo-Ping directed action is always fun to watch.

If you're looking for a slightly less cartoonish and slightly more brutal Kung Fu Hustle kind of film that also has a premise you might find in a slasher movie, I could recommend Dreadnaught.

Unusually good kung-fu of the old school. This is characterized by middle shots that emphasize the acrobatic ability of the performers instead of cutting around their short comings with extreme close ups of the actions that, let's say, show a single punch or kick.

As others have mentioned the lion dance scenes alone make this movie worth watching. If you have ever had the opportunity to see a lion dance, this one is in a whole different class at least compared to the ones I've seen in Chinatown parades in the USA.

Tak-Hing Kwan, steals the movie with his portrayal of Wong Fei-Hong. At the time Kwan would have been 76 years old. He was born in the last years of the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi Tai Hou, that is, before the last Emperor Pu-Yi came to power. Truly a link between the Kung-fu of yesterday and today.

All this said, the film is flawed by mixing Hong Kong movie genres. At times it is a kung-fu revenge film, comedy, supernatural horror, master and disciple, as well as a truncated unsatisfying love interest.

Still a must see, by any standard.