Kung Fu Humor: Flubbed Dubs + Review: Ways of Kung Fu (1978)

Ah, if there's one aspect to old school kung fu flicks that really brings me back to the days of my youth, it's a nice ridiculous English dub. Don't get me wrong, I do very much enjoy watching a film in it's original audio, but a classic dubbing job really gives me that ol' Saturday Afternoon "Black Belt Theatre" vibe! If someone ever played a kung fu movie drinking game, say "Count the 'You bastard!'s", then with the right movie you could get wasted in the first 20 minutes! What we have next is what I like to call a "Flubbed Dub." In other words, one of those moments where you're really not sure of what you just heard, or one of those "Did he REALLY just say that?!" moments! Sometimes they make no sense whatsoever, other times the character is stating the complete obvious, but most of the time you're either laughing, scratching your head in confusion, or both!

This first installment of Flubbed Dubs comes from "Ways of Kung Fu" (1978).

"What on Earth did you put in those buttholes?! (bottles)"

This movie centers around Ta Kung (Chi Kuan-Chun), a hapless student who refuses to learn kung fu because he doesn't like it. When a corrupt monk enters the temple, and continually humiliates Ta Kung, the head monk sends him to stay with Shang King (Leung Kar-Yan) and his family of kung fu experts, knowing that Ta Kung will eventually learn. Even after arriving, Ta Kung is still hesitant to learn kung fu, so Shang King puts him to work... Well guess what buddy, by fetching that water, and splitting those logs, you're learning kung fu! Ta Kung eventually realizes this and becomes Shang King's student. After two years of training, he feels he's ready to go get revenge on the renegade monk. He returns to the temple to face off against the monk and is nearly defeated, but Shang King shows up and is killed, allowing Ta Kung enough time to escape. Ta Kung then meets up with an old drunken master and his student (Meng Fei) and hones his kung fu skills. Then together, they go after the evil monk and defeat him.

This movie is fairly lackluster. The story is nothing new (are they ever?), but does provide a few occasional moments of excitement. There's a couple good training segments, and a couple good fights. The highlight of the film is a training fight between Ta Kung and Shang King outside in the rain where Beardy dons an umbrella as a weapon. The final fight between the corrupt monk and Ta Kung/Meng Fei is pretty good, including nice use of an iron ring, but the ending is abrupt and kind of a let down. Also a couple side plots were introduced but never really elaborated on, specifically the drunken master (who never teaches Ta Kung drunken boxing!) and a police constable who has apparently been after the corrupt monk for quite a while. It's worth a view if you're a fan of the genre, but not worth going out of your way to see it.

RATING:
2 out of 5 Venoms

¹KUNG FU CLICHES: Classic dubbing, potty humor, freeze frame, bad skin.

Ways of Kung Fu trailer
"Buddha's name be praised..."

New DVD Releases: 4/27/10

A couple long awaited releases are hitting the shelves today, April 27th, 2010, both from Funimation.

First off, we have one of the most popular and sought after triad movies of all time, "Hong Kong Godfather." This brutal Shaw Brothers actioner stars good ol' Beardy (Leung Kar-Yan) as a triad who leaves the biz after his wife dies, so he can care for his daughter. Well, a few years later the triad gang boss is murdered by a power-hungry traitor among the ranks, and Beardy grabs his trusty old machete and heads out for revenge. What follows is a bunch of brutal and hard-hitting fun as Beardy cleans up one mess by making a very bloody other! The finale is pure chaos. GET IT!

Also released today is another Shaw flick, this time starring Ti Lung. "Opium and the Kung Fu Master" sees Lung as one of the Ten Tigers of Kwangtung. He gets a little too hooked on the chinaman's nightcap, and can no longer defend the town. As Ti Lung spirals into addiction, his rivals take over the town, and his young student is killed trying to defend his honor. Lung snaps out of it, cleans himself up, and then cleans up the town. The action and fights are classic in this late era Shaw production.

Hong Kong Godfather finale

"Buddha bless you..."

Happy Birthday Beardy!

Faces of Fu would like to send out warm birthday wishes to Leung Kar-Yan, who was born on this date, January 20th, in 1949. Happy 61st birthday, Beardy! Check out our Beardy profile here!

What's your Beardy top 5? I'd have to go with, in no particular order:

• Thundering Mantis
• Legend of a Fighter
• Exciting Dragon
• Warriors Two
• Miracle Fighters

Beardy in a comical role in "Exciting Dragon."



"Buddha's name be praised..."

Review: Shaolin Master & the Kid (1980)

Here's my first review. It's a little long winded, since I've been pretty excited to get The Faces of Fu up and running! Enjoy! - KFM

Shaolin Master & the Kid (AKA One Man Army) is a Taiwanese production that borrows heavily from the Lone Wolf & Cub series. It starts out rather confusing with some quick cut scenes that make it hard to tell what's going on. From what I could gather, a criminal is raping and pillaging, with some flash scenes of a government official ordering his arrest, guys banging on drums, and some boobies thrown in for good measure. In jumps Nan Kung Sao, some type of government officer bad-ass, whom will be referred to from now on as "The Hero." The Hero kicks the crap out of the criminal, and hauls him in. The official orders the criminal to be executed, and off comes his head. This all happens in about two minutes or less.

Next, The Hero returns home to find out that an evil warlord has had his mother and brother killed in retalliation for the execution of his criminal. Upon leaving the residence, The Hero finds his quite young nephew Sao Chu hiding in a well, scared and crying in a gratingly annoying female dubbed voice, and learns that the child's mother was kidnapped by the killers. He embraces the child, cries a solitary tear, and vows revenge. Cue sappy music. The next morning, The Hero sets a trap by leaving the child alone to mourn at the graves of his father & grandmother as he hides nearby. On cue, four assassins flip onto the scene, seemingly from out of nowhere, to finish their dirty work...

Killer - "Hmmm... Well it seems that the little fish escaped!"
Hero - "The big fish is over here!"

The assassins then run over to where our Hero is hiding, and proceed to get their asses handed to them like it's nobody's business. The whole while The Hero nonchalantly has a piece of grass hanging out of his mouth. He picks up one of the assassins in a Torture Rack (executed much better than Lex Luger I might add) and gets him to admit who sent them to do the killing of his family. And off we go...

The Hero, now decked out in a white outfit and coolie hat, drops off his nephew with "Uncle To" and asks him to watch the kid while he's off getting revenge. Uncle To agrees, and walks outside with The Hero to see him off. When he comes back in five seconds later, the kid has already run away! Our Hero continues on to the next town and stops at an inn for a rest. Meanwhile, outside, Sao Chu comes into town (damn that kid is fast!) and steals some buns from a street vendor. Some local brats see him and chase him into the inn and attempt to put the beat-down on him. Our Hero saves him, and takes him back to Uncle To's, where he instructs To to lock the kid in a closet for three days, which he does. The Hero continues on to the village to find the man that ordered the murder of his family. He finds his home, enters the courtyard, and proceeds to easily take out four unarmed thugs, two spearmen, and two swordsmen while the man he's looking for is watching. He then enters the home and finds the man in a room with his wife and baby. The man grabs a sword and attempts to attack The Hero to no avail. The Hero disarms the man and finds out he was just a middleman obeying orders to have the family murdered, and will not reveal the true mastermind of the plot. Meanwhile, his wife takes a pin from her hair and attempts to stab The Hero. He dodges the attack and she ends up killing her husband! In a fit of rage, she picks up her husband's sword and tries attacking The Hero. No dice. He takes control with the sword at her throat, but just as he's about to filet her larynx, the baby starts crying and our Hero flashes back to his embrace with Sao Chu at the well (Cue sappy music again). He spares her and sets off back to get his nephew. On the road again...

The Hero & Sau Cho set off together. Of course after 20 seconds of walking, the nephew starts whining about his hurting feet, so our Hero begins pulling him in a wagon. (Not nearly as cool as Lone Wolf's baby cart!) So night falls, and we cut to three assassins sitting around a fire waiting for The Hero to arrive. One assassin hears something in the woods, and the other two go to check it out. Well, they end up dead by an unseen assailant. This prompts the following conversation...

Assassin #3: "Who are you?..."
Assailant: "Heh heh heh... I'm the devil's envoy and I've come to take your life!"

...and take his life he does.

But it's not our Hero... so who is it? We'll find out soon enough. Well it turns out these three assassins were hired by a henchman of the previously mentioned evil warlord to take out The Hero. Word gets back to the henchman that someone has killed the assassins. He believes they were killed by our Hero, and immediately puts a bounty of 1,000 gold taels on his head. Needless to say, the news spreads quickly, and now EVERYONE is after The Hero...

Next we see The Hero and his nephew strolling into another town. A table of four thugs (one is in blackface, and another is in whiteface make up!) see them, and they're ready to throw down for the gold. Of course The Hero disposes of the attackers with no problem whatsoever. During this segment, we are introduced to two new characters. The first we'll call "Thunder Palm," a young fighter who has also just learned about the bounty. He just kind of sits back and watches what happens here. The other character, we'll call "The Man In Black," played by Phillip Ko Fei. He actually saves Sao Chu from one of the four thugs while our Hero is busy beating the crap out of the other three. He is ALSO the killer of the three assassins in the forest! Is he on the side of The Hero???

After The Hero & kid leave town, we learn a little bit more about Thunder Palm. He is in love with his girlfriend, whom we will refer to from now on as "Girlfriend," and wants to claim the 1,000 taels of gold to give to her mother for Girlfriend's hand in marriage. (Which is stupid since the mother only wants 20 taels of silver!) He makes a promise to the mother, and then excitedly runs to his cabin in the woods (all the while doing flips and jumping in & out of 25 foot trees) and digs up his chest of Thunder Palm grenades (hence his name!). In comes Girlfriend, swinging in tarzan style (I kid you not...). Apparently Thunder Palm had burried his grenades after promising Girlfriend he would leave his old lifestyle of killing behind. Here comes the drama, and the sappy music, this time the theme from The Young & the Restless! And it pops up like five more times throughout the rest of the movie! Girlfriend once again begs Thunder Palm to never fight again, and he says he will not... She then takes his grenades down to the river and throws them in the water, unaware of the fact that Thunder Palm is spying on her so he can retrieve them later! This scene then cuts to Sao Chu and a bunch of other naked kids playing in the river, shown in slow motion I might add, while The Hero lays on the hill watching them with a big smile on his face. Talk about creepy...

All of a sudden arrows start flying from all sides towards our Hero! Some killers with crossbows try to collect the bounty, but once again, The Hero smears them. This scene has some hilariously bad wire work, and very entertaining use of dummies! After TCB'in, our Hero has his first actual face to face with The Man In Black. Great music plays whenever TMIB shows up, sounds like spacey Alan Parsons Project or some shit. They have a minor confrontation, which REALLY looks like Spy vs. Spy from MAD Magazine. TMIB is basically trying to find out how tough our Hero is. The fight ends with our Hero sustaining a minor injury, and this snippet of dialog...

TMIB: "You're the very first man.... who could withstand me."
Hero: "You're the only one... til now... who could hurt me."

...and TMIB walks off into the sunset.

So, to make an already too long story short, TMIB meets with the warlord's henchman and says he will kill The Hero, but such a difficult task will cost 10,000 gold taels. The henchman agrees, but only if TMIB kills the nephew also. TMIB agrees, and goes to take care of his only real threat to the bounty, Thunder Palm. They have a confrontation, and Thunder Palm drives him away with some grenades. The next day we see our Hero & Sao Chu continuing on in the woods, and out jumps Thunder Palm looking to collect the gold. The Hero overpowers Thunder Palm, and is about to slay him, but Girlfriend and Sao Chu beg for him to be spared. Cue Young & the Restless Theme again. The Hero spares Thunder Palm's life, but not before cutting off two of his fingers, leading to this unintentionally funny line:

Hero: "You've lost two fingers, but you can still use a hoe."

The Hero and his nephew continue on the journey and we cut to Thunder Palm & Girlfriend. Thunder Palm has once again promised to never fight again and they decide it's time to get married. After the Young & the Restless theme AGAIN, in comes TMIB to poop on their plans, and thinking that Thunder Palm is still a threat to the gold, carves him open like a turkey. He then rapes Girlfriend as Thunder Palm dies watching. Now Girlfriend vows to avenge her man's death. Next we see our Hero out on the trail, carrying Sao Chu in a basket on his back. TMIB catches up to them ready to fight. The Hero throws Sao Chu about 50 feet up into a tree for safety, and the fight is on. After a great Spy vs Spy fight, they come to an even lock up, TMIB confident he will emerge victorious. TMIB tells The Hero the mastermind behind the whole plot and then says...

TMIB: "I promise you that you will soon have a fine quality coffin!"

...and of course The Hero parries TMIB's secret weapon and defeats him. But what's this? Somehow, fifty feet up in the tree, the henchman appears and kidnaps Sao Chu. Also, Girlfriend once again swings in on a vine like Tarzan, and sees TMIB has been killed and she now owes our Hero a debt. He continues after the mastermind warlord and arrives at his humble abode. After getting attacked by an eagle (and plucking it clean in mid-air with his sword), he finds a note from the warlord telling him where to save Sao Chu. Off he goes. Along the way he paddles a boat half way across an exploding river (yes), and jumps the rest of the way across (about 100 feet) jumping off the surface of the water not once, but twice as a springboard. At the top of a hill, he finds Sao Chu, guarded by none other than Beardy! Oh, and about 20 archers. While busy with Beardy, two things happen. The evil warlord (Chan Sing) shows up and carries off Sao Chu, and a group of soldiers show up and take out the archers. Who the hell were they and where did they come from??? Anyway, our Hero kills Beardy, and makes his way to the hilltop where he gets blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back, and strung up from a tree. Out comes the warlord and we find out the criminal that was executed at the beginning of the film was his only relative, so now there is no one left to carry on the legacy of nasty evil warlord type stuff. He's got The Hero right where he wants him, and says...

Warlord: "How I hate you! I'll kill you! I'll drink your blood,
and eat your flesh! Every drop, every morsel!"

...and begins to slice & dice him.

Well guess who shows up when things look grim for our Hero? It's Girlfriend, and she's back to repay her debt. She throws a couple Thunder Palm Grenades, releases The Hero from warlord's kinky bondage, and promptly gets skewered. After a nice fight, our Hero defeats the warlord's Eagle Claw by hanging him. I mean come on, he wouldn't have been "The Hero" if he didn't live, right? He then rescues Sao Chu, they bury Girlfriend, and head off into the sunset, this time little Sao Chu pulling The Hero in the wagon! THE END. (What became of Sao Chu's mother!?)

This was a good movie. It had lots of classic KFC's¹ and the story was entertaining. The fights were good, The Hero was a very likable character, TMIB was a great villain, and also a there's cameo by Beardy! It would make excellent Saturday afternoon viewing, and I recommend it!

RATING:
3 ½ out of 5 Venoms

¹KUNG FU CLICHES: Classic dubbing, superhuman feats, hokey wire-work, insane dialog, stolen soundtrack, dummy abuse, plot left hanging, and more.

"Buddha bless you..."

Profile: Leung Kar-Yan

For my first featured Face of Fu (how's THAT for alliteration!), I have chosen my favorite kung fu actor, Leung Kar-Yan. Leung Kar Yan (or Beardy, his nickname) started his acting career in the early/mid 70's. He had been a fan of director Chang Cheh's films, as well as Bruce Lee's movies. As his interest in kung fu movies progressed, he decided to visit a movie set to see how films were made. At the time, Chang Cheh was looking for talent, and Leung Kar-Yan decided to try his luck. Even though he had no prior acting experience, Leung Kar-Yan had his first acting job just a few days after his interview! His first film was Chang Cheh's "Shaolin Martial Arts" in 1974, and the rest is history!

While he started his career doing films for Chang Cheh that were distributed by Shaw Brothers, it wasn't until a few years later when he broke out and earned some bigger roles. In 1978 he hooked up with Sammo Hung for the film "Warriors Two" at Golden Harvest Studios. Some other excellent films he did around this time under the helm of Sammo Hung were "Enter the Fat Dragon," "Knockabout," and "The Victim." While displaying wonderful fighting in these films, Leung Kar-Yan also showed a flair for slapstick comedy, especially in the latter two. Some of his other popular movies during the end of the 70's and beginning of the 80's were "Sleeping Fist," "Thundering Mantis," and "Postman Strikes Back" co-starring a young Chow Yun-Fat. "Thundering Mantis" has one of my favorite ending scenes of all time. The normally happy-go-lucky Leung Kar-Yan gets pushed to his wits end.... and it just has to be seen to be believed!

During the mid-80's, Leung Kar-Yan decided to try his hand at directing films. In 1984, he directed his first movie, "Profile In Anger." Between 1990 and 2003 Leung Kar-Yan directed a few other movies. He had some success with his own films, but not as much as he saw earlier in his acting career. In 1997, Beardy once again teamed up with Sammo Hung, this time as his Assistant Director, on the set of Mr. Nice Guy, starring Jackie Chan. That film grossed over $45M in Hong Kong alone! Leung Kar-Yan continues to act in various action and comedy movies to this day.


Many attributes have cemented his position at the top of my list. Firstly, his seemingly effortless command of the martial arts is amazing. His forms are very fluid and graceful, whether it be his Mantis style in "Thundering Mantis" or his Wing Chun in "Warriors Two." I was amazed when I found out that he actually had NO formal martial arts or Peking Opera training! He basically just learned by mimicking the moves shown to him by his co-stars and action directors. ...And he learned from some of the best martial arts action directors in history, including Liu Chia-Liang, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Wo-Ping! Secondly, I find his acting to be great, especially considering he jumped right into the industry with no experience what-so-ever. Serious, slapstick, he can do it all. Be it a no nonsense villain, a bumbling two-timing crook, or an out of control fighter seeking revenge, he knew exactly what the role needed to make it entertaining. Finally, his trademark beard... Normally the beard signified a kung fu villain, but Beardy could sport it as a hero and still make it work. It makes him instantly recognizable, and even casual kung fu fans will usually remember Beardy!

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Shaolin Martial Arts (1974)
Warriors Two (1978)
Knockabout (1979)
The Victim (1980)
Thundering Mantis (1980)

Here's the ending battle from "Thundering Mantis."

"Buddha bless you..."