Il mio nome è Shangai Joe

In 1882, spunky Chinese man Shanghai Joe hops atop a stagecoach from San Francisco (subtitle says St. Francisco!) to Texas in order to become a cowboy and ends up having to defend himself against a seemingly endless stream of trash-talking rednecks.

Soon Joe runs afoul of a group of nasty human smugglers who send four colorful hired killers to do him in, including Gordon Mitchell, a cannibal, and scalp-collector Klaus Kinski!

Coming out on the heels of the hit television show "Kung Fu", The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe is a lot better than it's Italian knock-off status would suggest.

It's almost all non-stop action with loads of flying fists and flying lead. Blood, a bit of gore, and a great Ennio Morricone sounding score by Bruno Nicolai all fit the comic book nature of the film quite nicely!

In the title role, Chen Lee is really good and should have been in more movies than he was.

Shanghai Joe is just a regular Chinese guy who has moved to America to get a good job and live the dream. Sadly for Joe everyone he comes across is a racist moron who don't want Joe to get anywhere. Sadly for them Joe tends to lose his rag and beat everyone who crosses him into submission.

This film is a lot of fun. A lot of fun. For the first half of the film Joe just goes from job to job being harassed and doling out justice, but then he crosses the wrong guy (a slave trader) and from then on the heat is on, in the form of ugly Gordon Mitchell and uglier Klaus Kinski! Basically just one action set piece after another, this film does not disappoint. Its a nice merging of spaghetti western and martial arts and Mario Caiano isn't daft, as he gives us loads of both in an overtly violent way.

Honestly, for a spaghetti western this one is really high on violence. Wrists are broken and bones protrude, folk are drowned in boiling water, hands are cut off, torsos punctured by fists and Joe even manually removes a guy's eyeball! Entertaining stuff.

I had this in my collection for years and now wish I'd watched it sooner. It's on YouTube if you don't own it.

Also - Joe screams Eeeeeaaaaeeaagh before braining someone. Watch out for that.

This one is a real oddity, a martial arts western, with a small role for the ever evil Klaus Kinski as the bounty hunter set to go and kill our Hero Joe.

Joe arrives in San Francisco, and instead of meeting the people of the land of the free he meets the land of the racists, and his troubles only just start to begin.

Joe is far to nice for his own good, polite and well-mannered, thats until he needs to defend his life and then his fists of fury unleash some retribution.

A lot of fun.

Minor, enjoyable and surprisingly violent Spaghetti Western, one of a clutch of such efforts embellished with an Oriental touch in the form of a martial-arts exponent hero (as can be gathered from the title). The film was enough of a success to boast a sequel – THE RETURN OF SHANGAI JOE (1975).

Chen Lee is the typical meek Oriental who becomes deadly when provoked; we're given plenty of opportunity to see him at work here, particularly after he falls foul of a slave trader. The latter despatches four ruthless assassins to exterminate the Chinaman – three of whom are played by well-known actors and popular Euro-Cult figures of the era: Gordon Mitchell, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart and Klaus Kinski, the other by Robert Hundar (ill-fated hero of CUT-THROATS NINE [1972], which actually preceded this viewing!). Kinski receives second-billing but his contribution lasts all of 7 minutes (and he only turns up 68 minutes into the film!).

Eventually, we learn that the title character is one of only two masters of a specific martial arts technique – so, naturally, the boss eventually calls on his equal to fight the hero! The most violent moments occur when Joe gouges the eye of one of the hired killers – a scene which surely must have inspired Quentin Tarantino for his KILL BILL (2003/4) saga – and the confrontation between the two Orientals, which involves dismembered limbs and busted torsos! As usual for films of this genre, the music score is a notable asset which is here provided by Bruno Nicolai.

Shanghai Joe is a Chinese martial arts master who somehow finds himself in the racist Old West. Of course, Joe is pushed to his breaking point by them racist white folk, so he starts kicking honky ass left and right. Fast-paced and incredibly violent, 'The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe' is the kind of mindless entertainment that Spaghetti Western fans love. Klaus Kinski shows up to get his ass handed to him and add some star power to the proceedings...well, star power in our minds. Bruno Nicolai rips off his score to 'Have a Good Funeral, My Friend' but it's so good you won't care.