Fist Power
12/29/00
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Chiu Man Cheuk, Lau Ka Wing, Chang Pei Pei, Wai Ying Hung, Anthony Wong

Man Cheuk is sent out to rescue Wong's son from an illegitimate father before Wong himself, who is holding a school hostage, kills a bunch of people.

After searching frantically for this movie for a good 4 months, I found it in Chinatown, like most of my other movies. Every review I read said that the editing was terrible in this film, that the cameraman was on a bucking horse the whole time, and that the action, though plentiful, sucked. I wouldn't believe it though, and after seeing pictures of the action I thought, "What could be so bad?"

The action starts when Man Cheuk comes into the security building and is attacked by 10 guards, all with night sticks. He starts off nicely with some tumbling, but starts doing acrobatics with the camera angle changing every second, and you see bodies falling. He didn't even hit those guys. It continues, and he's attacked by 20 guards, and starts kicking their night sticks which fly and hit other guards. Then he ties them all together, which would be cool looking if you could see it. The editing doesn't let you see anything for more than 2 seconds, and they're shaky shots too. More, he goes into an elevator and 4 guys dressed in suits step in, they go up, and they attack him, and the camera is all over the place again, and nobody except Man Cheuk does anything anwyays. More, he goes into a dark hallway, throws his lighter down, and follows it using its light to beat the guards around. He catches the lighter at the end, but I wonder how he made it fly. More, he goes to the roof, and is attacked by another 20 guards, with the camera angle from about 3 miles away. Good job guys. All the choreography is BS anyways, so it doesn't matter. The guys come in, get hit, and fall. This aweful scene is a whole 5 minutes long too.



One of the 2 good things about this movie is that Chiu fights Lau Ka Wing, who plays his father. It's a play fight, so don't expect anything serious. No punches either, but weird hand positions where they just stick their fingers out. I guess that's the best way to spar. Some of the fight is filmed well with the camera capturing both of them, but other times it's close in on one person (Chiu). The whole thing, 25 seconds long. It's just nice to see Lau Ka Wing these days. He still seems to be able to keep up with Chiu too.



Some stupid humor, and then that Alien guy from Gen X Cops drives a Civic and is chased by cops. Blah nothing special. Chiu goes to the airport and beats up 4 guys in the bathroom. I counted 3 hits. He goes onto a train, beats up 6 or so guys with the camera angle changing every 2 hits, and it's over. Don't get me wrong, Chiu has talent, but so far it hasn't been used properly.



Then the unthinkable happens. 5 guys on bikes try and take the kid away from Chiu. They're all idiots and don't even get off their bikes when they should. Look at the picture. The kid crawls under a bench, and the guy hits it while riding the bike, but doesn't think to get off the bike to get him. Ugh. Chiu beats 3 of them up by swinging a bike around, chases after the other two, and knocks them down. Horrible. Avoid this scene. They undercranked some of it too.



Chiu goes on a boat, and everyone starts attacking him, so he beats them up. More piss poor editing and lame bad guys make this another bad scene. Then Chiu fights a white guy, and it's aweful, which is too bad really because I think the opponent had some potential, but bad camerawork (again), sloppy choreography (again), and choppy editing (again) spoiled it. Chiu, though, still seems to look good despite this.



Things get worse. Chiu goes into some office to get papers, and he looks around and makes note of the blank papers and people not doing anything. Ok, so what? Why did they make a fake office that they assumed Chiu would come to? It's so stupid, I hate this movie. Oh and everyone is wearing Nikes and athletic shoes. They didn't think of shoes when making this fake office? Ok, along with that it's another bad fight. Everyone has a basebal bat, and none of them know how to use one. Chiu takes them all, and the Alien guy runs around the whole time, and gets beaten repeatedly which would kill someone of his build. And some talentless woman fights Chiu, tries to do some acrobatics (which aren't half as nice looking as Chiu's), and attempts to fight which is rediculous. Chiu shocks the wet ground afterwords, but all the people jump over the shock. Too bad. Chiu, again, is not bad and does his own stuntwork, it's just everyone else is terrible. Anthony Wong fights that woman later too.



Chiu gets to fight the white guy again, which is good because he gets a better chance this time, but he seems to be a little sloppy still. No worthwhile choreography this time either, but some of it is filmed so you can see the moves, despite the same aweful editing. He dies by falling onto a small rail.



Finally, the last fight. Chiu goes into the game room (I don't know why, so don't ask) at the school and is attacked by four guys, one of them looks like an old master, but I didn't recognize him. Same old crap here. His family of four comes to the rescue, which is also crap except one thing, which happens to be the OTHER good thing about this film. Lau Ka Wing fights this older guy, which isn't bad, even though when the other guy does some good looking chain kicks they all get their own camera angle, which is bad. Meanwhile mom, bro, and sis are fighting, and it's all kind of rediculous I think. Bro is doing generic staff fighting, sis is kicking but nothing great, mom is throwing a guy around with a plastic stool. But Ka Wing's fight is good looking, and his opponent is the best dressed in the film along with Chiu. 27 seconds long. The end.



What a bunch of crap though. The training between Ka Wing and Man Cheuk wasn't so bad, and the final fight with Ka Wing was better, but still nothing was really worth the $6.50 I spent on this VCD. So much action, all garbage really. I don't recommend it. If you have doubts about my review (and believe me, I didn't believe anyone's reviews either), just know that Chiu Man Cheuk looks good, so does Ka Wing, and that guy Ka Wing fights, but nobody else does. If you're looking for a movie with Chiu Man Cheuk just to see him, this is ok because he does all the fighting besides like 2 fights. But if you want to satisfy an HK hunger for great choreography, nice, clean camerawork, and good opponents, AVOID THIS LIKE A PLAGUE.

1/5 - Why worse than Blacksheep Affair? Because you can't see any of the action. People like Blacksheep because you can see what's happening. You can't see anything in this. If you want it for Chiu Man Cheuk only, 4/5.

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