La Vengeance de Lee

FLASH CHALLENGER is a Taiwanese martial arts movie from 1973. It's a singularly cheap effort but one which fills the screen with as much physical action as is humanly possible, which means that it's never a dull film to sit through. Unfortunately I found it an entirely derivative work that pales beside the efforts of Bruce Lee, Jimmy Wang Yu, or the major studios that were putting out similar fare at the time.

The original English title is FEROCIOUS TO FEROCIOUS. The main character is the unlikely-named Frank Chan, a mercenary for hire who is employed to retrieve a shipment of stolen gold by his employer Tiger Wong. The main bad guy is called Jackal Lam who turns out to be a gun runner to boot. Police corruption is also a sub-theme but the emphasis is very much on stock fighting rather than plotting.

The fights aren't bad and they are fairly lively, although I found them a bit too noisy with the constant whooping and the like. The only actor I really recognised was the great Japanese fighter Yasuaki Kurata, who pops up late in the proceedings as a stock bad guy that the hero must fight.

The movie opens when two gangs meet in the woods for a fire arms deal. Instead, they fight. Cut to our hero, played by Anthony Chan Keung, who fights some guys on his way to meet some other guys. He is a contract fighter who hires on to find the gun runner and gold smuggler Jack Lam. Another fighter, played by Cliff Ching Ching, is also looking for Jack Lam. He gets into a fight at a casino and Anthony joins in. They buddy up. At their hotel room a girl enters. They argue a bit then fight a bit.

The fights pop up often for little or no reason. The action is competent but generic. One fight is set in a lumber yard. I counted at least ten Taiwan martial arts movies made in 1973 or 1974 that used a lumber yard as a set for fights. It was probably the same lumber yard in every movie. (The "mother of all" is 1974 "Dual at Forest".) The fights are mostly hand to hand brawls with dozens of fighters. There is no creative use of props or elements of the set such as the 55 gallon drums, wooden pallets, ropes, and ladders. Guns were part of the story but thankfully not part of the fights.

My copy is a digital file that plays as a square video on a HDTV.The resolution is better than expected. It is dubbed into English. I don't recognize the voice actors but they are good, not at all annoying.

This movie drew my attention because of Kurata Yasuaki's credit. His role is minor and he fights only in the final sequence. He adds some techniques that make this the best fight. Kurata throws high kicks effortlessly. He does sequences with 16 or more moves without a cut. The director can do long shots because his total body does the moves with finesse and style. Kurata also add emotional content with a good "fighting face".

I rate this as plain white rice and lukewarm tea average. Fans of the genre should find it is watchable and quickly forgettable.