Second in our Sammo Hung series, and this one's a stone-cold classic. Sammo's filmmaking skills seem to have improved by leaps and bounds since Warriors Two - not that that one was bad, but this one is just much more cinematic. It also looks a lot more high budget, with great sets, but the camera movement and shot framing is just fantastic. It also stars a very young-looking Yuen Biao (third of the "Three Dragons" along with his Peking Opera "brothers" Jackie Chan and Sammo) who is not just perhaps the most spectacular martial artist of the three but also a very appealing performer. A slimmer-than-I've-ever-seen-him Sammo
shows up halfway through the film and is his usual fun self, but perhaps the most intriguing presence is Ching-Ying Lam, supposedly a buddy of Bruce Lee's, who plays Yeun Biao's (very reluctant) master. But let's set this up properly. We begin with Yuen Biao's Leung Chang and some hangers-on visiting a restaurant where some people at a nearby table decide to take him on because he's known as the "street brawler" and beating him will enable the mouthiest of them to set up his own kung fu school. Well, Leung dispatches them with ease, and all seems well until we see the most goofy-looking of his hangers on slip outside and pay off the men.
It turns out that, while Leung isn't terrible, he's nowhere near as good as he thinks, because his wealthy parents have arranged for all of his combatants to be bribed to lose so that he doesn't get hurt. Next we cut to the henchmen going for a night out at the opera, where one of them falls for the female lead.
They all go to visit her backstage and get a bit insistent until she beats the crap out of them (painting the main one's face with clown makeup in the process). This is all done with feminine grace, perhaps a nod to the fact that, as with Warriors Two, this is a showcase for Wing Chung (and in fact, Leung Chang is the master in that one, so this is a prequel of sorts), which is said to have been invented by a woman. However, it is revealed that "she" is actually a man (which one would think would be pretty common knowledge to anyone who knows anything about Chinese opera), albeit one with permanently shaved eyebrows and who seems very comfortable with his feminine side.
This is Lam's Leung Yee Tai (I don't there's any significance in the shared "Leung" because it is never commented on, but it's a tiny bit confusing). The sidekicks come back that evening with our Leung and he confronts the Opera Leung. To the sidekick's horror, he reveals to our Leung that he is known as "The Prodigal Son" behind his back because of all the bribing (which the sidekicks even attempt on him, to no avail). (Sidenote: I don't quite understand the usage of "prodigal" here. As I now know, it just means spendthrift, and it's not actually him who's doing the spending. (When I was little I thought prodigal meant "goes away and comes back again" because of the parable. But that doesn't fit here, although it does predict what will happen with Leung Chang.)) And to prove it, Leung Yee Tai makes very short work of Leung Chang, causing him to realize that, indeed, he has been set up (and just to confirm it, he goads the teachers who had formerly been easy for him to beat into actually trying, and it does not go well for him).
He then attempts to get Yee Tai to accept him as a pupil, but he keeps refusing, until Chang gets his father to buy the opera company, and for them to take him on as Yee Tai's valet (he brings along his goofiest servant
as his valet, and instructs him, a la Kato in The Pink Panther, to attack him at random intervals). The company sets off in a boat to travel to nearby towns, and next we see them arrive in what seems like a very prosperous one. Also arriving in town is a Prince,
who is a royal version of Leung Chang, both in that he travels from town to town seeking challenges and in that he too is a "Prodigal Son" - his two bodyguards also bribe (or otherwise nobble) his opponents (although not all of them - the prince is actually very good, and we see him challenged by somebody whose arm he crippled five years previously, who has spent the intervening years becoming very adept at one-arm fighting, but who ends up getting that arm paralyzed, and told to come back when he's worked on his legs). Leung Yee Tai is not happy having Leung Chang along, and in fact sets him up: the main "male" actor in the company is a lothario and sleeps with the wife of the wrong man, so cannot go on in his usual role as a famous general. Yee Tai sees a chance to prank Chang and says he should play the role. There are some Macbeth-esque traditions around this role that complicate things: most notably that you cannot speak before going on stage, so when the angry husband and a band of thugs show up to castrate "the general" Chang cannot explain but has to try to fight them.
This spills out on to the stage and Yee Tai is forced to intervene. Thus it is that legend of his fighting skills reaches the Prince and he demands a fight. They are neck and neck when Yee Tai is overcome with asthma, and the prince honorably stops the fight and says that they will resume when he recovers. However, the prince's bodyguards relay to the prince's father that this opponent is a little too good and he instructs them to round up 20 assassins and slaughter the entire company. Long story short, they do (and it's very upsetting - lots of innocent actors and actresses get their throats cut in bed) but Chang (who initially thinks the ninja-like assassins attacking him are his Kato in action) helps save the still-wheezy Yee Tai, in an amazing sequence set inside a giant flaming tent. In the process it is Chang who gets his arm injured and he is taken by Yee Tai to recuperate with Yee Tai's brother on his farm. The brother is Sammo, and he has an adorable plump daughter (called "Twiggy") whom he is trying to train in both calligraphy and kung fu.
While here, the squabbling between the two brothers leads to Yee Tai realizing that he's fond enough of Chang to accept him as a pupil (as in the Warriors Two this involves being served tea by your prospective pupil on his knees and you accepting and drinking it), and there are some very fun training sequences of both brothers training Chang. However, Yee Tai continues to be troubled by his asthma, and his "herbs" are cheap (according to his brother) so Chang insists that they head back to his home town where his father can pay for the best medicine. This they do, and find the goofy servant both alive and astonished to see them alive, and proceed to start a school. But the prince shows up demanding that the fight continue, leading to Yee Tai indignantly accusing him of the slaughter of his company and the bodyguards panicking and stabbing Yee Tai to get him to shut up. He dies, the prince realizes the truth and is conscience-stricken, and gives up his wealth and status (and has the bodyguards beheaded! This movie doesn't stint on the gore). This sets up a rather non-standard final fight scene between the prince and Leung Chang. Unusual in that the prince isn't really a villain, and has in fact recanted, so it's just for pride. But duke it out they do, and it's an excellent final fight, leading to some non-fatal blood-spurting and painful-looking falling-on to-stone-steps.
Very satisfying, positively pro-gender-experimentation, and worthy of standing alongside peak Jackie Chan films, which is the highest praise one can give. And as with Warriors Two, the Arrow Blu Ray print is absolutely gorgeous and crystal clear (somewhat to the detriment of the slightly amateurish makeup).
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