La Nouvelle Fureur de vaincre

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.

Somewhat a sequel (really in-name-only, although there are minor character references and the dangerous title name method gets used without the same affect) to Lo Wei's "Fist of Fury" that starred martial arts legend Bruce Lee, Wei would go on to direct having Jackie Chan on the main mantle, in what is a virtual remake in the political theme of China vs. Japan and certain story plots. Chinese academies fighting to stay alive against Japanese martial arts school. Spirited, but the impact and charisma of Chan just doesn't feel right. A young Chan is quite raw, in a more aggressive and vengeance-filled role. But it's far from a Jackie Chan vehicle, as he doesn't really come into play until midway through due to his character's reckless and carefree attitude that sees him constantly being beaten up. Still there are some outstanding martial art sequences, namely the final long-winded confrontation where it's brutal and bloody (and those nun-chucks get a work out) with an out-of-the-blue payoff that tries to be as iconic as the film it's wanting to be. Pacing can be a little uneven (excluding those kung-fu slow-motion shots), but director Wei keeps the story straight-forward adding enough interest and tension with Chan Sing making a terrific deadly opponent for Chan and Nora Miao is good too.

1970s kung fu movies have never exactly been known for outstanding (or comprehensible) plot. So, if you're anything like me, you were expecting this movie to be like the rest of Jackie Chan's early career: silly, unrealistic, and largely nonsensical, but fun nevertheless just because of Jackie's sheer force of personality. And, of course, his incredible stunts and fight scenes.

Unfortunately, New Fist of Fury fails even to meet that modest standard. The entire first half of the movie is apparently dedicated to the development of the plot. Bad move on the filmmakers' part. A kung fu movie is about kung fu, not lots of boring... *talking*. Jackie doesn't even start to learn kung fu until the movie is nearly over, for pity's sake! This would be forgivable, I guess, if the resulting plot were at all interesting. No such luck. Besides which, most of it simply becomes irrelevant by the second half of the movie, when everything hinges around a straightforward martial-arts-school showdown. As for the ending... well, I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say it's incredibly abrupt and surprising. And not in a good way.

This isn't to say there aren't fight scenes. There are several of them pointlessly interspersed throughout the tedious plot development, and one big one at the end that *almost* makes the rest worthwhile. But when the fights do break out, even when Jackie is actually involved, this isn't the almost cartoonish, balletic violence we see in his other movies. Rather, it's fierce and bloody -- the actors in the final fight scenes chomp down fake blood capsules like M&Ms -- and seems to hinge around the frequent use of kicks to the groin. (The guys kicked in the groin, inexplicably, are all given lingering closeups.) The fight scenes are still incredibly cool, of course, but not worth sitting through two hours of cheesy dreck.

In brief, this movie is too ridiculous to work in terms of plot, and its fight scenes are too nasty and spaced-apart to redeem it.

A few particularly ridiculous things to look for, if you watch this movie anyhow:

1. The high-pitched whoops and screeches during the old kung fu teacher's speech. (I don't know if that was a loon being tortured to death, or the cries of agony from one of the groin-kick victims.) 2. The old kung fu teacher's leaping-and-shouting related death, and the fact that his body still stands there looking annoyed afterwards. 3. The Japanese army captain's dubbed-over voice. "Weaselly" is a vast understatement here. 4. Jackie's Fist of Fury technique -- described on the back of my VCR tape case as "a new and deadly art, never before revealed on the screen" -- which involves waving his arms up and down slowly during funky 70s hypno-music. Deadly indeed.

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.

It was a mistake in trying to model Jackie Chan as the new Bruce Lee. There will only be one Bruce Lee. "Golden Harvest" attempted to make Chan's character in "New Fist of Fury" another version of Chen Chen (Lee) from the previous "Fist of Fury" movie. In the above film, Chan is angry, hard-edged and determined but none of that suited him. Jackie Chan needed a chance to develop his own personality and identity in the Asian film community. Eventually, he succeeded as we know. The plot picks up where "Fist of Fury" left off and the narrative here is a rambling mess! I can't be sure but I reckon the DVD I have of this movie is heavily edited. There is poor continuity and the film's depressing tone doesn't help. It is rather obvious that Chan and the school he belongs to, haven't a chance against their Japanese enemies. The film may have a generous dose of location shooting but that doesn't compensate for much. The fight scenes are still pretty good and at least they provide some distraction from the film's weaknesses.