Ju ma pao

I watched this film for the legendary Polly Shang Kuan, but was surprised to find the film to be much more entertaining and effective than I expected.

The opening, colorful costuming, story and pace is mounted in the fashion of a Flash Gordon Saturday cliffhanger serial, and this, a year before Star Wars.

The complicated story involves the military conquest of a peaceful island-nation by an evil despot and his sorcerer ally. His victory leaves the island's three heroic protectors dead, but, their young children are hidden away to grow to adulthood with different identities, unaware of their heritage, in hope that, in time, they might challenge and defeat the evil ruler. The charming Polly Kuan stars as one of these children who has been adopted by the conquerer himself, initially as an insult to the defeated hero, later as his protégé.

Truthfully, the acting and martial arts are not outstanding, but, the story, as presented, has the qualities of a much better film. Even with the poorly done and over the top English dubbing, every once in a while, character driven elements, including humor and pathos are on display. The finale, in many ways, reflects George Lucas's Return of the Jedi, but is more effective on certain levels then the Star Wars effort. From me, that's saying a lot.

I'm not saying this is a very good film, it's not, but there are a few great ideas on screen that would soon be fully realized in the bigger budgeted films of the '80s.

Well worth your time!

A peaceful city nation is taken over by an aggressive enemy, led by a dictator and a wizard. The children of three prominent citizens murdered by the invaders grow up and seek revenge.

Return of the Kung Fu Dragon is a martial arts film from Taiwan. It isn't particularly distinctive from the many other chopsocky films from the 70's. In other words its action packed from start to finish, with lots of kung fu fighting. Like others it's cheaply made, with ropey dubbing but it does gain something from its period setting, which does give it some production value. But on the whole, this is strictly one for enthusiasts for this kind of thing.