How typical! There you are, a highly-skilled and respected exponent of Monkey Fist, having just finished another exhilarating performance with your Opera Troupe, when you get an invite to dinner by a local Kung-Fu Master (Lo Leih).
Your sister accompanies you, but despite her constant nagging for you to stay calm and sober, you get blind drunk and start an impromptu Kung-Fu display.
As luck (his, not yours) would have it, your host isn't a particularly well-meaning individual and sets you up - first by accusing you of raping his wife, and then by claiming your sister as compensation.
Just to ensure you don't try to come back and seek revenge once you've sobered up, your gracious host then goes about turning your hands into something akin to salami...
Never happened to you?! Well, Lau Kar-Leung's Master Chan could fill you in on the finer details, but he's more intent on
training the aptly nicknamed Little Monkey (Hsiao Hao) in order to gain his revenge, in this rather under-whelming Shaw Brother's production.
Whilst the sets, and set-pieces are impressive enough, and Kar-Leung's Master Chan is suitably tragic in his role of unwittingly wronged Kung-fu master, Little Monkey should have been neutered at birth. His hyper-active gurning turned me cold immediately, and whilst this could have been excusable with inclusion of white-hot combat scenes, Director Lau Kar-Leung instead opts for far too much of Little Monkey's aping.
The training scenes with Little Monkey are easily up to snuff, but action sequences seem to lack the usual colourful imagination and fluidity found in most of Kar-Leung's films.
Inspiration is only found during the last 15 minutes, when Master Chan and Little Monkey take on their nemesis in a breathtaking display of acrobatics and martial combat to the strains of the Wong Fei-Hung theme, but by this time my attention had started to wander.
Very impressive, deep blacks are not quite matched by detail levels - great at times, lacking at others.
Colours appears natural throughout, and are well contained in the majority of scenes, whilst digital compression artifacts are pleasingly absent.
Picking the Cantonese soundtrack to watch the film, all seems well:
Surround usage is minimal, dialogue is generally clear and distortion-free, making for a perfectly adequate presentation.
Be warned though, the DVD will start with the Mandarin track playing. This is not the original audio, so change to the Canto track immediately.
Very good subs are presented, which capture the flavour of the film, although grammatical errors crop up now and then. However, these are well above the usual standard of Hong Kong subtitles, and will cause no problems for viewers.
Special Features aren't that impressive on this IVL release, starting off with the obligatory trailers archive. This includes Mad Monkey Kung-Fu, 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, Executioners From Shaolin, Disciples of the 36th Chamber and New Tales of the Flying Fox.
Under 'Movie Information' you get 22 behind the scenes and on-set stills, a print of the original poster art,
and some
worthwhile bio/filmography information for Lo Lieh, Hui Ying-Hung, Hsiao Hao and Lau Kar-Leung.
Some incredible acrobatics and action enliven the film's final act, by which time my appetite to continue watching had severely diminished, after the over-consumption of stodgy comedy that preceeded it.
Neither a total triumph nor a complete disaster, pick up this DVD if you're a fan of one of the cast, but just don't go expecting this to be the Monkey's nuts!
| MOVIE |
 |
6/10 |
| PICTURE |
 |
7/10
|
| SOUND |
|
7/10
|
| SUBTITLES |
 |
8/10
|
| EXTRAS |
 |
5/10
|
| MENUS |
|
7/10
|
| PACKAGING |
|
7/10
|
| OVERALL |
 |
7/10 |
