A Lâmina Fatal

The Hand of Death aka Countdown in Kung Fu (1976) is a vastly underrated early work by director John Woo. The film stars Dorian Tan (Tan Tao-liang) and features Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and James Tien in significant supporting roles. Many people believe, or have been lead to believe by deceptive advertising, that this is a Jackie Chan film. This is not a Jackie Chan film, Dorian Tan is the star but Jackie gives one of his best (most serious) early performances.

The Hand of Death is about a Shaolin disciple named Yunfei (Tan) who is sent on a mission to assassinate a Shaolin traitor named Shih Xiaofeng (Tien) and protect a revolutionary named Zhang Yi (Woo). Along his journey Yunfei meets up with a young woodcutter named Tan (Chan) and a disgraced sword fighter (Chang Chung) known as "the wanderer." Both men have suffered at the hands of Shih and want to take revenge. The three team up to defeat Shih and his eight bodyguards and escort the revolutionary to safety.

The martial arts action is above average under the direction of Sammo Hung. Dorian Tan uses his trademark high kicks very effectively as the "Northern eighteen styles kicks" along with some "Southern five styles boxing." Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan provide excellent martial arts performances as well. James Tien is not the greatest martial artist on the Jade screen but does an acceptable job. Some of the early fights are a bit slow and seem over choreographed but the final showdowns featuring Chan, Tan and Hung are very good.

Director John Woo provides plenty of interesting character development in the film, which is refreshing. The cinematography by Leung Wing Kat is very stylish, unique and beautiful for a kung fu film of this era. Joseph Koo's music: a combination of soft flutes and 70's "Shaft" style orchestral pieces is kung fu cinema at its best. Hand of Death is not Jackie and Sammo's usual kung fu comedy. Hand of Death is a serious, straightforward revenge driven story.

Hand of Death aka Countdown in Kung Fu is an underrated classic in the old school kung fu genre. The film is one of the best artistically of its time and a preview of the great things to come from Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Hung's great choreography is put on display here before his directorial debut and Chan's early charisma and talent can be clearly seen.

Hand of Death is a solid, stylish old school kung fu film and a brilliant early work of the legendary John Woo.

Kung Fu Genre Rating 7.5/10

Wanderer to Tan (referring to his new weapon): "The Little Eagle Wing God Lance."

Tan: "Just a knickknack."

Before the era of heroic bloodshed John Woo the master of gun-fu make some martial arts movies and the one i particular interest in is The hand of Death starring Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.The movie is quite genetic with a plot has been done many time before and even when it featuring a young Jackie Chan he not even the main character.Fan of old school martial arts will enjoy this movie

Early in John Woo's career as a director in Hong Kong, he had the auspiciousness to direct three of the seven fortunes in Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung in their first movie together Hand of Death (1976: Chinese Title literally means Shaolin Gate) though much was not made of this at the time because they were all struggling to make a career. They have yet to work together again in such a capacity though they have said nothing but kind words about each other since. An interesting point, in hindsight, is that the star of the film is none of the three (it is hard to spot Yuen Biao as his role is of a stunt double and bit actor) but Korean export and Tae Kwon Do expert Dorian Tan Tao-Liang.

Dorian Tan Tao-Liang stars as Yun Fei a Shaolin trained fighter looking to find Zhang Yi (John Woo) and escort him through White Stone town and across the White River. Zhang holds a map of all Qing bases in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in southeast China. He can get a hold of Zhang by contacting pupil Chiu Guo. However, when he is found, he has already been arrested and ready to be beheaded by the Manchus led by a traitor of the Shaolin Shih Xiaofeng (ubiquitous bad guy James Tien: Fearless Hyena, Winners and Sinners) who has taught himself White Crane Soul Chaser Style (he is the titular Hand of Death). Even though his Kung Fu is superior, he has the additional help of Eight Bodyguards with different styles and two top ranking guards in Smiling Fox and Du Ching (Sammo Hung who also does the stunt coordination) whose overbite is quite preposterous and resembles a "hopping vampire" though he is trained in tiger and crane styles.

Yun Fei gets the assistance of a woodcutter Tan, who helped him earlier to get past a roadblock and dispose of a body (a true friend helps you get rid of a corpse). Tan's elder brother was killed by Shih's men. Tan also obtains the help of "The Wanderer" (Yeung Wai) an expert swordsman who accidentally killed a prostitute he was in love with also because of Shih and would have given up his sword for good if it was not for Yun. These men will help Zhang Yi get across the river to get the plans to help once and for all defeat the Qing Empire and restore the Ming Dynasty (the plot of the Qing Dynasty as bad guys is one of the staples of Hong Kong martial art movies like Heroes Two, Royal Tramp and Iron Monkey).

Many will have bought, borrowed or rented this movie because of the presence of Jackie Chan. He originally was only supposed to have a stunt man role (helped hired onto the film by his "big brother" Sammo Hung) but as John Woo found one of the Korean actors lacking in the physical department, he replaced his part with Jackie Chan and expanded his role according to an interview with Lee Server in "Asian Pop Cinema" he stated he "changed the whole script to focus more on him and show his great skill." though there might be some fraudulent hindsight with that statement. Jackie originally had been the stunt coordinator for Woo's first film Young Dragons (1975) that came out a year earlier. Jackie did get hurt on the film, getting knocked unconscious after being pulled by a cable while being kicked by Dorian Tan and landing and hitting his head on a rock (though this would not be as bad as his most famous accident in Operation Condor where he almost lost his life).

Others might watch this because it belongs in the oeuvre of John Woo. It is still very early in his career (his fourth film in two years of being a director), but you can see traces of his talent. There are some nice hand-held scenes, a little use of slow motion and hints of "heroic bloodshed" elements (though this would come to blossom in Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979)) like an early scene when Jackie Chan and Dorian Tan first meet which seemed to hint a certain homoerotism (or else those were some of the most strange smiles I have ever seen), but then failed to capitalize on it later in the film.

Overall, this is a decent, yet unspectacular film. The direction is solid, yet it does not feel like a John Woo directed movie. The scenery of the Korean hillsides is absolutely beautiful and helps makes this movie easier to watch. The story is mediocre, but not too many glaring holes in the story. The Kung Fu ability is give or take. The kicking of Dorian Tan is beautiful to behold, his punching ability and forms are good but not great. Jackie Chan is also awesome with his fighting and you get to see him use a spear the Little Eagle God Lance as it is called in the film (which that and the staff are the traditional weapons that Jackie is best with). The highlight fight scenes of the movie are when Jackie fights several of the Eight Bodyguards and later when Dorian fights Sammo. The latter is especially impressive because of Sammo's willingness to hurt his body to make Tan look good. James Tien is not much of a martial artist, though his acting if fine as he is the consummate Hong Kong bad guy, so his hand-to-hand combat scenes are a bit pedantic though he has one scene wielding a sword that was good.

I don't know about other people, but I don't imagine I would've come across this had it not been an early John Woo film that also happened to include Jackie Chan in small roles.

It's interesting to see three action movie icons honing their skills, and the film as a whole is watchable, if a little dull and by the numbers in parts (the opening half or so is particularly slow).

It gets better by the second half, and as you'd expect from a classic martial arts film, there's some pretty good action right near the end that's worth sticking around for. I'd say that as long as you go in with moderate expectations, there's enough here to make it worthwhile.

In China, the Shaolin men are hunted down by a powerful warrior who wants to rid the Shaolin men from China and puts death threats on any shaolin men found. At a remote training camp the last few shaolin men train, their best student (flash legs tan) is given the task of taking down James Tien and his reign of terror. Along the way he befriends Jackie Chan who appears as a farmer however Jackie disappears (reappearing later on).

He arrives at the main arena (Where James Tien is) and tries to take on Tien, but fails dismally - his shaolin techniques are useless against Tien's extended iron claw. When Tien beats him, he leaves the rest to his eight bodyguards, each mastering different weapons such as swords, shields, staffs, etc.

Half-beaten, Flash Legs Tan goes to a village and discovers Tien's men are taking apart the village and pillaging anything they can to scare the villagers into submission.

Tan befriends two people along the way, including a brilliant swordsman who has never drawn his sword after he failed to protect his wife.

The two men meet up with Jackie again and they convince themselves to stop Tien now or not at all and start training (which I found the best part of the film).

The film as a whole is a good one, though pretty slow in places, the fight sequences are on a par with later movies - though expect overly long fight sequences.