Hei bai dao

The first time I watched this movie was about six years ago on a DVD I bought. That was probably the worst DVD I ever bought as instead of writing a review I just made notes complaining about the subtitles covering one third of the screen, about 12,000 skips of the picture and the subtitles appearing and disappearing. A few years later I found this movie on You Tube with widescreen and proper subtitles. That made the difference between pain and pleasure in watching a movie. I withheld my review until I could watch it properly.

"The Chinese Boxer" was Jimmy Wang Yu's last Shaw Brothers movie. It was also the first Shaw Brothers movie he starred in, wrote, and directed. (I doubt anyone has ever accomplished that hat trick.) Looking at the dates it took Jimmy only about three months to take his act to Taiwan and star in, write, and direct another fine movie.

The movie starts with a gang of thieves plan to rob an escort. At the site of the confrontation both sides talk before fighting. That unwatchable DVD had much different subtitles than the good quality version. The gang leader says "My name is Chan and it is my pleasure to be your robber." I loved that line. Yet the other version did not have it. Yes, there was some polite talk first but that great line was not there.

The first fight is a brawl and it was done right. Sometimes brawls look good at first but when you watch it again you see nothing but a lot of jumping around and sword waving. This brawl is done right because opposing sides are dressed in black versus white making it easy to see who is who. The long shots are used only a few times to show the viewer if one side is starting to overcome the other as in just a glance you can see who has greater numbers still standing. Most of the shots show the action of the main characters. These shots are close but not too close. It all wraps up with just the leader of the escort standing alone against the many remaining robbers. He does a great job fighting but then is killed by a dirty trick. Therefore though he lost the fight he maintained his honor to the end.

Jimmy arrives at about the 20 minute mark. He saves a child from a runaway horse to show he is the hero. Then he takes a seat at "Exposition Tea House" and listens to the locals explain the story line. The daughter of the escort company owner will be out for revenge.

Polly was riding that horse. The gang is looking for her. She meets with Jimmy at an inn and immediately have a misunderstanding.

Like most fans I rate this just above average for the year and genre. I compare Jimmy's style with his contemporaries this way. Bruce Lee was unbeatable fighting perfection. Jackie Chan was not the best fighter but always found a way to win usually by improvising or being cleverer than his opponents. Jimmy was also not the best fighter but he was an unstoppable relentless force. By the time he made his flying guillotine movie I began calling him the madman of martial arts movies.

This is a surprisingly good movie, considering the age, the budget, and the simplistic plot line. Namely:Evil bandits kill the entire Hung Escort, including poppa Hung, and steal the 500,000 silver taels they were escorting. The elder Hung is a mighty swordsman, but falls victim to the big boss bad guy's demon rod, a nifty combination poker and Swiss Army Knife affair, after a lengthy knockdown drag-out opening battle.

Cue impetuous vengeful daughter Hung, skilled in dual knifeplay, and hell bent on killing the guys who offed her pappy. Good guy Jimmy Wang Yu introduces himself by casually flipping out of a tavern to save a blissfully unaware child from the thundering hooves of the aforementioned vengeful daughter's horse as she leaves town on her mission of vengeance. She's too busy being vengeful and impetuous to see the child, but it matters not, because Jimmy saves the kid, and her lollipop. Ms Hung heads off to bad guy mountain while Jimmy stoically finishes his tea. Hurrah!

Naturally, Wang Yu is an incognito heroic kung fu master, known throughout the region as Iron Palm, who just happens to be heading the same way as vengeful daughter Hung. When they meet again, at a cartstop along the way, they have a brief comedy tussle, before casually battering a few dozen of the local thugs into the ground and joining forces to combat the nefarious evildoers.

It might sound cheesy and a bit predictable, but this is one of those old school kung fu movies that just gets better and better as it progresses. The acting is pretty good, and the grand finale is well over a quarter of an hour of swish kung fu and fancy swordplay with oceans of blood being spilt by the evil minions foolish enough to mix it with Jimmy Wang Yu.

I've got a ropey bootleg DVD which looks slightly worse than a beat up VHS, with "occasional" subtitles and crunchy sound. It's nearly an authentic Friday night chop socky fleapit vibe, and it's quite possible that I might have whooped a couple of times.

See it if you can. It's kinda charming in an innocent way, and Jimmy Wang Yu is usually worth watching. It sometimes feels like a Ringo Lam or John Woo heroic bloodshed movie that's been hurled back in time a few hundred years. Maybe they grew up watching Wang Yu movies too?