Il ventaglio bianco

Review: It was weird watching this film again because it brought back old childhood memories. I remember the epic ending completely amazed me and I thought that the whole thing was real. The movie came out on VHS when I was 7 so I didn't get to see it until I was around 9 years old so I really thought that Jackie Chan was in pain towards the end. Anyway, this is definitely what I was looking forward to when I started this Jackie Chan season because it's extremely authentic and full of epic action. In some of the scenes it did seem like they were fighting for no reason and the plot did get a bit confusing in the middle but the epic showdown near the end was excellent. Watching Chan take some formidable punches whilst gearing up to kick butt near the end, still gave me goosebumps but like most of his movies, he just has to add a comedy element to the intense situation. For that time, the stunts were amazing and the choreography was spot on. I just hope that the rest of his earlier movies are just as good. Great Film!

Round-Up: This movie was also directed by Jackie Chan, who gives you an in depth insight into his methods behind the camera, on the bonus features of the DVD, which are definitely worth a watch. I must admit, I did miss all that "You Killed My Master" type of concept but it's still worth a watch if your into you vintage Kung Fu movies.

I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/adventure/comedy, Kung Fu movies, which came out on VHS during the 80's. 7/10

Tiger has gone astray and has defected to a rival kung0fu school who are using his skills for evil means. They end up framing Tiger for a crime he didn't commit. The younger of the two orphans, Dragon, messes up in a competition and is expelled until he can clear his brother's name. On the journey much martial arts action, mistaken identity comedy and general adventure is had on the way to a final show down.

Jackie Chans first crack at directing shows he is man of many talents. This film broke every record at the Hong Kong box office and it still stands up today in the world of OTT fight scenes in every Hollywood movie you'd care to mention! The reason this film stands up so well is that it has all the basics of any Chan film.

First off the fight scenes are all very good. They may not look as up to date, but they compare favourably with anything coming out of Hollywood today. The final fight is amazing and is only let down by a really bad dummy stand in at the end! Secondly, and just as importantly, the film is funny! Chan's comedy is bang on target – even 20 years later this is funny. This comedy is mixed nicely with everything else and sits well even within the final 15 minute fight scene at the end.

It does have flaws in that at times the plot is confusing or lost in all the comedy and action – but the plot holds on just enough to get by. But lets be honest, we didn't come here for plot – we came for action and comedy, and it delivers both.

Overall this is no classic but it has been one of my favourite Chan flicks for years, and even after 22 odd years this still stands up as a very enjoyable film with good action and comedy.

This is one of those all-out classics that must be viewed at any opportunity, a HK box office smash that not only revolutionised the dated traditions of chopsocky cinema, but also assured Jackie Chan's presence as the most prominent kung fu movie maker around: his use of slapstick humour and unconventional fighting hinting at what the ‘new wave' future was to hold. One of two orphans, Jackie plays the underdog hero, disgraced at losing his school the annual lion dance, due to his better brother Wei Pei secretly enrolling and leading the criminal rival class. The s**t hits the fan when Wei Pei's treachery is uncovered, quitting his former school to work for the baddies full time, and Jackie is made to bring him back home. Of the many delights Chan runs into, the stand outs are an infiltration on police inspector Sheck Kin's family, some nifty skirt-foot fighting and one of the best final punch-ups ever recorded – a lengthy one-on-one with criminal mastermind and super bootmaster Whang Ing Sik. As writer, director, choreographer and star, this is a landmark in Jackie Chan history - and even today stands as one of his best pictures.

Young Master is a very early Jackie Chan film that shows a huge sign of things to come. Mixing in great kung fu action with physical comedy, Young Master is well worth viewing for any Hong Kong action film fan. Sure, the plot isn't worth talking about and all the jokes aren't funny (the set-ups are very obvious most of the time) but you watch Jackie Chan films for the action, which this film has in spades.

Some of the fighting sequences do have very noticeable choreography when compared with the more polished flow of more recent films, but this is a small gripe for a film over two decades old. For a kung fu film you can do much worse than Young Master. It is always great to see Jackie Chan in full f(l)ight!

This is a really mixed bag of a movie. To begin with, it is very episodic, and the transitions between the episodes are confusing - even allowing for re-editing in different re-release prints. The opening episode appears to have been an attempt at homage to the Shaw Bros. style (sets, lighting, camera angles), and one suspects that Sammo Hung had a hand in it, since he had demonstrated a grasp on the Shaw style in a couple of his own early films. But once the opening is done, so too the Shaw style effects, and we're suddenly in Lo Wei territory at the Buddhist temple. Later, Chan borrows from Yuen Woo Ping quite heavily - the final fight is somewhat reminiscent of "Drunken Master", and apparently intentionally so. (It is probable that Yuen himself was on hand for consultation.) Sadly, these wildly different episodes never gel together to present us with one whole narrative; the grand finale feels like an artificial tack-on, it doesn't seem to resolve anything.

There's quite a lot wrong here: There's no explanation of why Chan's character - still an adolescent student - suddenly transfigures himself into a 'kung fu genius' (to borrow a phrase from Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle"); the school, once left behind, is never seen nor heard from again until the final credits - any dramatic input it could make to the story is thereby lost. The fascinating (and brilliantly performed) episode with the Inspector and his family also gets left behind and unresolved. The use of bong-water from an opium pipe as an elixir granting increased strength is completely artificial and unbelievable - a college fraternity in-joke; the use of wine in "Drunken Master", by comparison, is derived from myth, and based on an real martial arts tradition.

The one definitive term for this approach to movie making is: self-indulgence. Chan, at the time a recognized star in Asia, who felt he could do no wrong, is simply coming up with what must have appeared as good ideas and patching them together to give himself a star-vehicle and showcase for all his talents - he even sings the title track.

All this noted, it must be admitted that, as an episodic showcase, the film is actually very entertaining. Once you allow that the story is really irrelevant to the comic bits and fight scenes, these can be enjoyed on their own terms - the fight scene with Chan dressed as a beggar is really quite remarkable, and the visit to the inspector's house is very funny.

one more note on the release prints: I have seen a standard English-dub print and a Chinese print with subtitles; the weird thing is that the English print actually includes brief but important moments cut from the Chinese print, and would actually be preferable except that it re-arranges one important comic moment in such a way that all the humor is lost, and seems also to compress the violence so has to reduce its impact. Hopefully we'll one day get the definitive print of this; until then, best to see both prints so you know what you'd miss if you only saw one.