Kung fu n'y va pas de main morte

If you are looking for pure chop socky, then this film is for you. It doesn't waste a lot of time with meaningless dialog unrelated to fighting. It is basically Chinese "I'm gonna kick your ass, sucka." I heard the other day that QT is planning a similar type movie in his grindhouse vein with badly dubbed dialog or subtitles. He should watch this film for guidance as it epitomizes the genre.

Fei Meng gives a great performance as the son out to avenge his father. He takes two brutal ass-kickings before he gets his stuff together. (Reminds you of Rocky) The only problem is that you will be hungry for more an hour later.

'Kung Fu: The Punch of Death' is quite a movie. First off, it has a title so awesome that no mere mortal can resist it. It also appears to be strive to be a bit more than an average kung-fu movie, but the DVD version my mate bought could possibly be one of the poorest quality DVDs in existence (the digitally degraded copy, perhaps?).

'Kung Fu: The Punch of Death' begins with our hero, Fong Su Yi (Meng Fei), being cheated by members of a rival martial arts school. Apparently Fong believes that the appropriate course of action is to start a fight his rivals and kill at least one, which he does. Fong then proceeds to cause trouble elsewhere, but then Iron Fist and Iron Leg - the masters of the rival school - seek vengeance against Fong and kill his father, leading Fong to take vengeance against the killers.

I would be lying if I said 'Kung Fu' made perfect sense. Scratch that. I would be lying if I said 'Kung Fu' was easily understood. The dubbing on the version we watched was the average dub that simplifies everything and tends to make you laugh through most of the movie and miss various chunks of dialog (which were probably just as useless / awesome anyway).

As an action movie, 'Kung Fu' tends to deviate from the standard kung-fu movies at the time. There are random fights throughout the movie, but most of them end with our hero getting beaten to within an inch of his life. The fights looked pretty good, but fight editing was distracting, and the quality of the DVD doesn't help when it changes colour during a fight or flashes red for a second.

'Kung Fu' is technically a better movie than most other kung fu movies of the time. It does put more effort into costuming and scenery, such as having most of the male cast in traditional pig-tails. Of course, if you are like me or my mates,extended shots of people racing around in attractive locations will only serve to distract people from the kung-fu. And what's the deal with Fong's mother looking around about the same as Fong, and being more attractive than Fong's love interest?

As a movie, 'Kung Fu: The Punch of Death' is an above average 6/10. For a kung-fu movie to watch with some mates, 'Kung Fu: The Punch of Death' transcends a numbered rating in awesome value (for that to make any sense, check out my 'Killer Meteors' review).

This is a great movie. It has good acting. It also has a great story line. 5.8 is undrrating this movie. I give it 7 out of 10. A very good movie. See it. It is an awesome movie.

On the outside, KUNG FU - THE PUNCH OF DEATH is simply another in a long line of '70s period 'fu flicks. The storyline is completely unremarkable, telling the impossibly overdone tale of a guy seeking revenge for the death of his father, and the characterisation is virtually nil. The action sequences in themselves are passable, with a nice adult edge to them – no overblown comedy here, just guys absolutely beating the heck out of each other and nearly dying in the process. I enjoyed watching them, even if they lack the technical proficiency of a Jackie Chan flick.

No, the most interesting thing about this film is the direction, which is a cut above the standard. Chai Yang-Min is master of the roving camera and he always seems to frame his scenes in unusual, interesting ways. I enjoyed the visual impact of this film a LOT, and it made a nice difference to the usual set-up (choppy editing, static camera midway back, etc.). The quality of the acting is also worth noting – Meng Fei excels as the young, bratty hero and you can really get a sense of his newfound maturity come the climax. Yasuaki Kurata (MILLIONAIRE'S EXPRESS) makes an excellent foe and you never doubt his toughness for a second.

The film is flawed but I was in a forgiving mood. The storyline seems to expire after an hour or so, and there's about twenty minutes of padding which really didn't need to be here – I would have preferred a non-padded 70 minuter rather than a padded 90 minute offering. Still, the climax is typically good, complete with impalements and weapon play, and this is a fine example of an average kung fu film.

So for this movie I've seen it at least a few times and if I'm honest yes this is more of a movie I watch solely for the fights and rocky like story about overcoming great odds in the face of certain death and suffering. However, the acting and what strings the plot together is so bad it's funny sometimes. Some of the scenes make no sense like randomly breaking into fights for no apparent reason and the badly dubbed English and also some of the acting and scenes are so cheesy. However if I may say one thing the plot is genuinely engrossing at times. With everything else improved this could be an underrated gem. One part that still sticks with me after watching it over and over is how the character deals with defeat. No details to avoid spoilers, but when it showed the character's pain and what lead to his situation he was in I felt genuinely angry and sad at once even knowing what was next. I believe it's as good as a movie of its kind can get because some other movies of this type fail to even get close to being interesting at the end of the day or the overall plot is very bad. Everything in general isn't very bad, but these issues I mention earlier keep this movie from being a 3.5 to 4 star movie the kind that makes it into a collection of some of the best. Still recommended if you can get back some of the other nonsense.