O Poderoso Chefão de Xangai

A secret agent is assigned a mission to track down a major drug lord, after the previous government man assigned to the case winds up being murdered.

Hands of Death is a kung fu flick that ticks all of the usual boxes. There are lots of martial arts fights and much heavily dubbed dialogue. The story is pretty basic but this goes with the territory, as this is an action film pure and simple. There wasn't much in it that really stood out for me, aside from an unusual scene where one of the crime bosses breaks his own legs as a means of atoning for the bad behaviour of one of his own men, in an extreme honour ritual for the benefit of one of his rival crime lords. Also of note was the repeated, and almost certainly unauthorised, use of The Temptations song 'Papa Was a Rollin' Stone' as an integral part of the soundtrack.

The Tongfather isn't a particularly great martial arts movie: the plot - a pair of special agents attempt to smash an opium ring - is instantly forgettable and the fighting fairly routine, at least until the more rousing final showdown. But what makes the film remarkable is its anti-hero (played by the film's director Roc Tien), a lawman who makes Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry seem positively liberal in his approach. Rather than arrest or interrogate the bad guys, the guy simply kills everyone in his path, making The Tongfather a surprisingly brutal watch.

On the way to the inevitable fight against the big boss, we are also treated to the sight of an opium dealer breaking his own leg to compensate for his behaviour, a Japanese guard who orders passing people to become human chairs, and what I can only describe as a 'nipple twist of death' (which would make a great title for a kung fu film!). Also keep an ear out for the repeated use of 'Papa Was A Rollin' Stone' on the soundtrack (no royalties paid, I suspect).

This is one nasty old-school chop-socky.

Tien Peng approaches this film with the decision to make his Chinese spy in the Japanese-occupied territories as ruthless as any Western "anti-hero". So of course he comes up with an anti-hero that is the worst imaginable.

I mean, the Japanese guard was certainly despicable - but what "hero" could be so cruel as to force the guard to watch the guard's dog being cooked and eaten - before killing the guard with his own sword anyway? I'd like to say the hero kills first and then asks questions later - but he never bothers to ask any questions.

If it weren't for a great sense of timing - surprising from a director so young - this would be almost intolerably vicious. Be prepared for one of the roughest, most violent fight films of its era, utterly unredeemed with any humor or romance, and where the Chinese hero is the hero simply because the Japanese are bad-guys.

From the crudely edited looping of the Temptations' "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" (wahka-chakka guitar with space-echo, etc) as the theme music, to the pastiche of every action film style imaginable (noir, spy, gangster even spaghetti westerns etc) this minor-masterpiece of grotesque violence will be quite a hoot for fans of 1970's crime-movie schlock.

I found it copied from an appropriately battered and discolored 16mm print re-titled as 'Hands of Death' on one of those 'Kung Fu 20-movie-DVD pack' for $5.00 used - and worth every penny. The credits are almost nonexistent, other than 'A Sino-American Co-Production by Terry Levene Directed by Roc Tien' (Roc Tien is also known as Peng Tien) It is is clearly a Chinese picture, but different from the typical martial arts flick from Hong Kong (i.e. Shaw Bros) and apparently Taiwanese. There seems to be slightly different prints circulating, but I'm not certain.

'The Tongfather' has the familiar plot which follows a tough take-no-prisoners detective from the Taiwan police as he infiltrates and destroys several opium smuggling gangs and their bosses across Asia, only to discover they are controlled by a single Japanese crime lord, the ruthless Tongfather.

There aren't many fighting scenes (by martial arts movie standards anyway) but there are a few fairly imaginative and original depictions of brutality and pain, including my favorite - the scene where several underling crime bosses meet with their boss the Tongfather. They're all sitting cross-legged Japanese style on the floor in a circle having tea and discussing crime business. One of the underlings shamefully admits that one of his men betrayed them to the police. The Tongfather asks him how he will atone for this failure. The guilty underling slowly and silently reaches down, grabs his own leg and with all his strength slowly bends it upwards until its bones crack while the others stare in astonishment! The man doesn't scream and only grimaces a bit. Nice!

Available as 'Hands of Death' on Tubi as of June 2023.