What is in the chicken butts? Guns in a martial arts movie? I did not like the way this movie started, but Jimmy Wang Yu, you know? Turns out I think this could be one of his best. Unfortunately my copy had German audio and English subtitles. The plot was complicated and I am sure something was lost in the translation so I'll just let go of a few things that don't quite make sense. Spoilers ahead – or maybe I just missed the obvious. Jimmy is carrying a package to sell and it has to be drugs but Jimmy is never a bad guy so how can it be drugs but it is drugs. Filling in the parts of the dialog I guess he had no choice and he owed the master and he naively thought no one else would possibly get hurt. There are more problems though story-wise. It doesn't have a proper beginning, middle and end. It's really just a bunch of stuff that happens. I often watch the worst martial arts movies just looking for a special moment. This movie has more than one special moment even though it is not put together right. I enjoyed every minute of it and recommend it highly. The sets are as good as Shaw Brothers. The fights are all Jimmy the brawler. He doesn't really fight – stunt men fling themselves at him and he thrashes and flails and they go flying off in every direction for twenty plus moves per cut and it looks great. His weakness shows in one on one fights but in this movie he frequently picked up a weapon like a sword. Jimmy had about five years of experience swinging a sword by now so all the sword sequences are good. The stunt men truly took some hard hits in the final fight too and that was good stuff. Overall above average for year and genre.
