So Hak-Yee

Fist of the Red Dragon (1993) is a movie I recently watched for the first time in a long time on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a man whose mother died and was raised by his father and aunt. They do their best to keep him out of trouble but he's surrounded by gangs, opioid dealers and addicts. He does a great job with his good friend Wong Fei-Hung of staying out of those lifestyles. Unfortunately for him in his attempts to sell and market the cure for opioid addiction he gets addicted himself. His friends and family will do their best to get him back on the right track but the drug trade wont make it easy.

This movie is codirected by Chin-Chung Chan (directorial debut) and Woo-Ping Yuen (Drunken Master) and stars Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey), Dickson Ga-Sing Lee (Tiger Cage II), Fennie Yuen (Royal Tramp), Man-Tat Ng (Shaolin Soccer), Xin Xin Xiong (Black Mask) and Hoi-San Kwan (Hard Boiled).

This movie's storyline has a lot going on but is extremely entertaining to watch unfold. There's martial arts, comedy and a serious premise with drama all mixed together. I did like the father, aunt and son dynamic. The cast delivers solid performances around those characters and their feeling for each other. The action scenes by Yen are fun and entertaining and are a good mix of cable scenes and martial artistry. The Aunt's comedic scenes were funny and over the top. I will say Yen's addiction scenes didn't work for me and would be my only complaint about this picture.

Overall this is far from Yen's best movie but is still worth a viewing. I would score this a 6.5-7/10 and strongly recommend it to fans of the martial arts genre.

What can I say? Donnie Yen has made a fan out of me. Yes, he was in Iron Monkey. This movie started out with the fight scenes being mediocre and all of a sudden the film reeled off one killer fight scene after another. This movie is a classic and any Kung Fu fan should see this. I was only the 39th person to vote on this. That surprised me because this movie is awesome. Musa the Warrior was a killer movie as well. I look for top quality fighting and this movie does the trick. Oh yeah, the plot of the movie is about stopping the distribution of Opium. My brother rented this at Blockbuster and I was skeptical until I saw Donnie Yen's name. I give this movie a 10/10 as far as Kung Fu is concerned!!!!

The only meat a priest could eat on Sunday was Nun!!!

Heroes among heroes is another kung fu movie from the master: Yuen Woo-ping. It stars Donnie Yen (the greatest in my opinion!)) As usual, Yen kicks some major butts in this movie but the story is not really original: Opium dealing involving the ''evil'' british!!(Strongly reminiscent of Drunken Master 2, Tai chi 2 or even once upon a time in china!!) The actor who portrays Wong Fei Hong in the movie is also a good martial artist but Donnie, once again, steals the show with his grace and his charisma. He even uses the drunken style in this movie. There is a good amount of fights in this movie but they are short but the climactic fight is great. Watch this movie for the fights, not for the story, because the fights are from Yuen Woo-ping and Donnie Yen shines, as always!! 7.8/10

I recently bought this from my local video franchise which was closing it's store. It had a similar title and design to a Jet Li film I had seen called "The Legend of the Red Dragon". Of course I thought it was a sequel to the Li action flick I liked so I bought it, especially seeing it was starring talented Donnie Yen and the action choreographed by Yuen Woo Ping. Though this was a period actioner and did feature a lot of comedy like the Li movie, this one isn't a sequel. It was actually made before "Legend of..." but it's not a prequel either. Just a clever DVD design. And like that one, we never find out who or what the red dragon is. Also my version unfortunately didn't include either a cantonese or mandarin audio track. English and French only with subtitles. The English dubbing was terrible. But it made the comedy all the more funny, embarrassingly so.

Can't say I was too impressed after watching it. The action was OK but not the high standard I was used to from Ping. Too much silly wirework and a lot of the camera tricks were too obvious like the speeding. The fight with the Fire Lotus ladies at the temple was very good though as well as Donnie's fight with the prince in the finale. Not one of Ping's better movies, however.

The story played like an after school special about the dangers of opium and alcohol. Boy refuses drug, boy is seduced by drug, boy is addicted, boy is saved and seeks revenge and redemption. Unfortunately a lot of the subplots were left open-ended while it jumps from one action scene to another. I could swear this played more like a comedy than an action period piece. The two actors playing Yen's father and aunt were hysterical, especially Sheila Chan. I almost wanted to see more of their story than Yen's but then that little subplot gets pushed aside and we're back with the action.

"Su Qi'er" : Some arts are very well documented by loving admirers, like the old blues records.... Unfortunately, HK 'fu films haven't been so lucky.

I have a hard time believing this was released in 1993, let alone made that year. The Donnie Yen of this film still looks very young. And the same sources that insist this is a 1993 film also insist that the film released as "Iron Monkey II" is actually a sequel to Iron Monkey, and that it was made a year after Iron Monkey - which is patently absurd.

Add to this the fact that Stephen Chow released a film titled Wu zhuang yuang: Su Qi Er (King of Beggars)in 1993, and the fact that the recent Columbia-Tristar re-releases of HK 'fu films (including this one) have been sabotaged by gutless Hollywood hacks, and what you have is an unerring formula for confusion.

Oh, well. Whenever this film was made, it remains a minor classic of the genre. For one thing, the Wong Fei Hung depicted in this movie is the hero of the legend, not overly bogged down with story or "humanizing" faults - this is a real hero that draws good work and good feeling towards himself like the North Pole draws compass needles.

There are also remarkable bits of post-modern humor, especially the brief but hilarious jibe at Bollywood musical numbers, of all things.

The story is strong, the acting superb, and all the kung fu is top-notch. Receptive viewers will have many reasons to see this more than once.