La Nouvelle Fureur de vaincre

The first of several movies directed by Lo Wei to feature up 'n' coming martial arts star Jackie Chan, New Fist of Fury was devised as a sequel to Bruce Lee's popular film Fist of Fury (which was also directed by Wei).

Chan plays Lung, a layabout thief in Japanese-occupied Taiwan who hates the Japs and enjoys a brawl, but has no interest in learning kung fu, meaning that he regularly gets his ass handed to him by his opponents.

After being discovered left for dead in a ditch after one particularly severe beating, Lung is nursed back to health by the students of a local kung fu school run by kindly Master Su and his pretty grand-daughter, Miss Lee (Nora Miao). Lung is invited to train at the school but refuses, unwilling to give up his freedom as a thief.

However, when Akumora (Chan Sing), the local Japanese official, takes his bully boy tactics too far, eventually causing the death of Master Su, Lung has a change of heart, becomes a highly skilled martial artist overnight (or so it seems) and kicks some major Japanese butt (before being shot to death in the film's closing frames!!!).

With the star spending most of this film as a punching bag for his enemies, and very little evidence of the innovative slapstick comedy/fight action that one generally associates with his later movies, New Fist of Fury is bound to disappoint many Chan fans. Unless you are a rabid fan of JC and wish to see all of his early work, you would probably be better off giving this one a miss (or watch either the Bruce Lee original, or the excellent Jet Li version of the story, Fist of Legend).

First I will say that, yes I did enjoy Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury", but I also enjoyed this pseudo-sequel as well. There wasn't all that much reference back to the first movie if you look at it, sure Chen Zhen was mentioned, as was Jing Wu, but beyond that, then there wasn't all that much reference. And I found that "New Fist of Fury" was actually an adequate movie in itself. Watch it for what it is, a Kung Fu movie meant for entertaining.

The story is fairly simple, a young man living as a thief comes to be forced into learning Kung Fu at the Jing Wu academy during the time when Taiwan was occupied by Japanese troops. And this young man embodies the Taiwanese spirit and fights for an independent Taiwan, standing up to the Japenese occupational force.

Bear in mind that this is an early Jackie Chan movie, and it was before all the slapstick comedy became his trademark, so this is a more serious Kung Fu movie compared to most other of his movies. Being a movie from 1976, you of course have the odd sound effects during the Kung Fu scenes and fairly questionable acting compared to today's standards.

There was a good amount of nice fighting throughout the movie, however I think the last showdown, the climax of the movie, was actually a little bit too much drawn out, taking a bit too long to finish. And then the scene when the movie ends was rather anti-climatic.

The movie in itself is a well worthy addition to any Jackie Chan fan's DVD collection, especially because it is outside of the usual slapstick comedy genre of Kung Fu.

Fairly drawn-out and sometimes frustrating Kung Fu film about the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. This film is not too bad, you just have to make it to the final reel - something that I expect only enthusiasts of this genre will do. So why is it frustrating? Well, Jackie (or Jacky as credited here), does virtually nothing until fellow Chinese literally drag him into a Kung Fu school in the last quarter of the (2 hour) film.

Sure, he has one action scene early in the film, but he succeeds only in getting pounded nicely by two Japanese fighters. A nice motive for him to learn Kung Fu, I thought. But I was wrong. He does nothing about it...

Anyway, this is one of the more coherent Wei Lo films, and the tension builds fairly steadily. The main villain played by Sing Chen is a believable and decidedly confronting and dangerous man - he's great.

The references to Bruce Lee are tastelessly rammed down your throat, but the final fight is great and suitably brutal. It's a good revenge story, with an unusual ending.

Ok, call me crazy but I think good Kung-Fu films should have a lot of fighting.....don't you? In the first hour of this film, there's about 30 seconds of fighting. Why? What's the point of this film? This film is said to be a sequel to the original. It is not. This movie is a waste of time if you're looking to watch some good Kung-Fu action films. This movie is a drag. There's no character development, no good action sequences, and no story line.

Leave this one on the shelf and rent the original Fists of Fury instead.

After co-starring in Hand of Death, Jackie Chan was forced into an early retirement because of the shift in consumer tastes in movies. The Hong Kong audience was dissatisfied with the action films after the death of Bruce Lee, leaving an ever-widening amount of unemployed stunt-men and bit-players. Since Jackie was one of these casualties he retired to Australia to be with his family. There he did construction in the day and worked in a Chinese restaurant at night. Then he received a telegram from Willie Chan wanting him to work in a new film called New Fist of Fury – a sequel to the beloved Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury. He told him that the movie would be for the newly formed Lo Wei Productions and that the film would be directed by Lo Wei himself. Jackie would receive 3000 Dollars (HK) per month for acting (he would later receive 9000 for being the stunt coordinator.) Little did anyone know that this unknown actor would become a big boon to the industry; though, this would not happen for a while and would not happen (directly) because of this film.

New Fist of Fury is typical of a Lo Wei film, it lacks cohesion and character with an overuse of plot elements. The film starts after the destruction of the Ching Wu School in Shanghai. The remnants of the school, led by the delightful Miss Lee (Nora Miao), are forced to flee to Taiwan to avoid persecution from the Japanese. She will stay with her grandfather Su Onli who is the head of a martial arts school. Unfortunately, the Japanese are ubiquitous in Taiwan too. When her group arrives, they are the target of a thief Helong (Jackie Chan) and his companion Old Chin (Hon Siu). Helong (Ah Lung in some translations) steals a wooden box containing the prize weapon of the late Brother Chen (Bruce Lee in the superior Fist of Fury) – nun-chucks.

Later, after Helong is found in a ditch beaten half-to-death by the students of Chin Ching Kai, he is found by Miss Lee's group and is nursed back to health (with the help of his prostitute mother's money, whom he does not know.) For all of this help and their forgiveness of him stealing their property, he refuses to learn Kung Fu so he can continuously be beaten up. Miss Lee has bigger problems than trying to get Helong to learn Kung Fu – the Japanese occupancy.

Akumora (played by the muscular Chan Sing) is the Japanese provincial leader who wants to combine the Chinese martial art schools under his Di Wah school. There is a great scene with him catching a knife in his teeth and then throwing it from his mouth killing an attacker. It is so hard to take this scene seriously, but it reminded me what Ed Wood might have done if he directed a Kung Fu film. Akumora is an interesting character that starts off semi-decent and then ends up completely anti-Chinese ("I kill Chinese, just like I kill dogs.") This is another annoyance with the film; it is completely ethnocentric with one-dimensional Japanese characters. This annoyance is especially evident when Akumora challenges a staged Kwong Gung, stating that the Japanese heroes are much better than Chinese's heroes. This infuriates Master Su during his 80th birthday celebration and leads to his death (when he jumps over a large crowd of people and apparently has a heart attack.) With the death of Master Su, Miss Lee decides to revive the Ching Wu School. This leads to an obvious clash with the Di Wah School.

One of the biggest problems with this film (yes even worse than the ever-yelling Jen Da So, the kiai spewing daughter of Akumora) is that Jackie is misused and miscast in this film. He constantly gets beat up by both Japanese and Chinese and yet refuses to learn Kung Fu. He does not get a decent fight scene until at least three-fourths of the film is over and yet he obtained his skills in just a few days (it is amazing what anti-Japanese sentiment can make you accomplish). When he does fight, his skills are quite evident. Jackie is very acrobatic and his fight scenes flow well though he is relegated to using actors who are weak in martial arts (with a few exceptions like Han Ying Chieh) and they slow down many of the action scenes.

I am a fan of Jackie Chan (and many of the HK films of this era), but this is not a film that rises above mediocrity. While it is not worse than many films during the 70's it has a few negative attributes that will doggedly follow it -- New Fist of Fury followed one of the most beloved of Bruce Lee films with a weak sequel and misused a future Hong Kong Superstar. Useless Tidbit: look for a small cameo role for Lo Wei where he portrays an inspector.