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Shaolin Deadly Kicks (1977) | |
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another from the
50-pack of martial arts "films" Malaya got me for Xmas,
and this one was one of the best yet, in terms of overall quality of the
film. It still wasn't any good if compared to actual movie requirements,
but for chop socky it had good acting, a good plot, decent martial arts,
and was well-photographed.To the scores, which as always, are meant to be compared only to other chop socky films. While it's not any good, and has an ending so bad it loses several points right there, it's not a horrible film, and for chop socky, it's actually pretty good. Hence the scores. I wouldn't give it more than about a 2.5 against real movies, but for chop socky it's damn near a masterpiece. The acting isn't horrible, the dubbing is tolerable, and the plot is almost involving, though the pacing is a wreck. More on that in the story comments, below. Production Values Cheesy, but not painful. This one is set somewhere around the late 1800s or so, since they've got explosives in a few places, but no signs of mechanization, and 90% of the scenes are out in the forest somewhere. The woods are pretty, even though most of the scenes are on what look like agricultural roads; dirt paths with brush chopped down beside them. The fight scenes are in focus though, and the camera is far enough away that you can follow the action. Story The film opens with eight men robbing some sort of temple, and stealing a large octagonal disk that's said to have a map to a "treasure" on the back. The monks, or whoever, come back just as the thieves are leaving, and since the monks see the faces of the robbers, the robbers murder the monks (or whoever; they're not wearing anything especially monk-y) before escaping. The next scene shows the 8 men out in the woods, arguing if they should go for the treasure then. Some want to, but others argue that with the deaths there is too much attention and that they'll be seen, so they decide to come back together in three years, and when they men grumble about that, their leader cuts the map into 8 triangle pieces and gives one to each of them. Next scene it's apparently nearly three years later, and two men are trying to track down all of the pieces. They trick two of the thieves into coming out into the countryside with them and commence to fight for the pieces. One thief dies, the other kills his attacker, and then the remaining "other guy" beats him down and takes both pieces. As far as I knew he was just another thief, until near the end of the fight we find out that he's actually a policeman. This guy is the main character, an "actor" named Tao-Liang Tan, and he's the fast kicking guy in the title. And yeah, he's got pretty fast kicks. Not exactly a master at them, and he's got no leaping kicks at all, but he can certainly stand on one leg and wave his other foot around with speed and accuracy, if not much power. The story proceeds in video game fashion from there, with him tracking down the remaining "eight devils" one after the other, beating them up, and taking their piece. He's nice about it though; he offers to let several live if they just give him the piece, and he feels bad for one guy who has an old blind mother and a sick child; though he of course goes ahead and kicks his ass anyway. How that ties in to him being a policeman is hard to say, since he doesn't seem to be arresting anyone; he's just taking the pieces to find the treasure. The pacing is the only real problem with the plot, since the biggest showdown comes as he takes on a rich lord who has the fifth piece. In the course of that one Tan gets captured, beaten, tortured, and has to beat numerous lackeys including guys with spears, and a huge fat guy who moves about as quickly as the Marshmallow monster in Ghostbusters. There might have been a missing scene, since he got the fifth piece in that big battle, and then suddenly he's in a village and has six pieces, with no explanation. The plot thickens when Tan happens to save a cute girl from some roadside bandits, and she turns up later as the daughter of a doctor who has the 7th piece. Predictably, the doctor gets second thoughts about the murders and robbery, and the 8th piece guy kills him, thus forcing his daughter to join up with Tan as they chase after the 8th guy. Mr. 8 has cheesy looking plastic claws on chains he throws as weapons, and even has flash grenades and bombs, and after a protracted and completely ridiculous fight scene with Tan and the daughter against him, he climbs up onto the hiding place of the treasure, an old stone tower that looks like a small grain silo. Tan fights him to the top, and in the last scene #8 falls into the top of the tower through a secret panel (that looks about as plastic as you'd expect in this sort of film) and blows up as he falls. The scene freezes there, with Tan and the girl running away and a pink flare going off behind them, on top of the foam brick tower. And that's it. So um... the treasure is lost? Destroyed by his bombs? No telling. There's also never any actual view of the map, or a mention of how Tan can't find it with 6 out of the 8 pie-shaped pieces in his possession, or how he knows the names of the eight devils, or how someone needed a map to find the treasure in the only stone tower in all of China, etc. If these elements had made any sense I'd have had to give this one a really high plot score, since while it's not actually any good, it's great for the genre. Martial Arts Not bad, if almost entirely open hand. The hero never uses any sort of weapon, even when he's fighting a guy who has one, and he tends to either punch or kick; he's not good at blending them into the same sequence or combo. He's very good at kicking though, in very classic side kicks that go high or low. No jumping kicks, no spin kicks, no left/right kick combos, no straight kicks, no spinning heels, and not even very many crescent kicks. He's very competition TKD in form, though not quite that rigid. The bad guys have a bit more variety in their forms, but it's all very obviously choreographed, with the constant "punch and then hold your arm straight out for a second so the other guy can block it and do a counter." It's also very non-lethal, with mostly jabs and light hits, and never any joint locks or neck breaks or eye gouges or anything practical. In numerous scenes the bad guy has a weapon, the good guy has only kicks and punches, and he repeatedly dodges the weapon, hits the bad guy from close, and then lets go and steps away, thus letting the bad guy get back up and swing at him again. "Finish him!" Malaya and I yelled at the screen, constantly. The weapon work is quite awful, as is almost always the case in these old Kung Fu films, but I suppose it had to in this one, since the good guy never uses a weapon, and if the guys with sticks, spears, swords, knives, etc were any good... he'd be dead. Overall Excellent, for chop socky. Unfortunately, I'd much prefer a "so bad it's funny/good" film of this type, or a crappy movie with really good fight scenes. This one does everything pretty well, and earns a high score overall, but it's not good enough to watch again for itself, and the fight scenes aren't good enough to watch just for the action. So score it well, and then move on. |
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