Heroic Fight (1993)
4/14/2001
Review
Format: Mandarin DVD w/subs
Stars: Lum Siu Lau, Dick Wei, Yuen Cheung Yan

Wei (Dick Wei) loses to his brother in gaining ownership of his father's company after the man's retirement. He kidnaps his father, kills his brother, and Lum Siu Lau, along with her stunt group headed by Yuen Cheung Yan, goes after Wei to stop him.

This movie is silly, that's all there is to it. From the first scene where Wei's father changes his dog's diaper in a meeting to the part where the same guy can't manage to get the phones in his house to stop ringing, it's such an insane ride that I couldn't stop myself from enjoying it. Not only that, but the action scenes, which are abundant, are excellent. They have good kickboxing as well as a ton of gadgetry and while occasionally they employ wires to do some falls, the falls are outstanding, with the person doing 2 flips with 3 spins or something to that effect. Even Yuen Cheung Yan throws in some great moments without being doubled (except for a few things).

It starts off in the meeting I mentioned, and Dick Wei and another unknown go fight off 2 goons, one being dressed in camo. Dick Wei's fight gets the spotlight, which it deserves because he and the man in camo do some good kicks with long cuts. It's undercranked a bit, but that doesn't really detract from the overall effect. Wei's kicking, of course, is great, legs straight and everything, plus there's some good hand to hand work, but it's only 15 seconds long or so.



Lum Siu Lau gets in a small fight with some Ninjas in an odd place... one of them does a nice fall but it's not impressive otherwise. Another guy with a big mask comes in and shoots fire out of his hand, but this ends up being a fake scene and it isn't real at all. A little while afterwords, Yuen Cheung Yan can't help but set his hand on fire for us, and he lights a cigarette with it too. What a guy.



There's a small chase where Lum chases after some kidnappers by bike. Her double does some mad old school tricks here and there, like some hopping and spinning around, and there are a few gadgets here too. At the end of it 5 or so guys with blades jump out of the car and attack but get thrown around, one of them doing a nice fall off a ramp.



And of course there's some side splitting comedy, like when Mr. Duh gets a million phone calls at his house and picks up various phones, one of them being a soda can, when he goes to the book store (for no apparent reason) and picks up a Penthouse, and when a killer is nervously looking for a timebomb in a bathroom and hears a fart and gets scared. Good humor, much like the Yuen brothers' old humor. Most likely they all had a part in this film, but I couldn't tell because there were no English credits.



After some uncomfortable situations for Mr. Duh, Dick Wei and 3 others invade Yuen Cheung Yan's studio and each of the 4 members has a 1 on 1 with another person. It's fast and at times all of them are fighting at once on the screen, which is a little overwhelming. There's a lot of good kickboxing and use of the environment by Cheung Yan and Siu Lau, the other 2 don't do a whole lot and instead goof around. Cheung Yan does some surprising acrobatics, though they're not insane, but the man must be in his 40's in this movie and he's hopping all over the place. This is kind of odd because I've never seen Yuen Cheung Yan even fight before. He's always been the master with the bun on his head. Here, he's someone else entirely (but he kept the buck teeth, heheheh). He fights a guy with a hook on one arm, which is pretty cool, while Siu Lau takes on different guys and at the end of the whole thing they both fight Dick Wei, who is too good and has a knife come out of his foot. The scene lasts almost 4 minutes, and there's action the whole time, but something bothered me and that was that each cut of action rarely led into the same action with a different angle. It's like the cuts began and ended without the assistance of other cuts. That's the kind of thing that we did when we first started filming, and it's not so great actually. However, these cuts are longer than your average ones, with 10-12 hits in each one. So that's admirable in itself. Wei puts out some nice kicks as always, takes on 2 at a time, and this one axe kick he does looks beyond painful. Good scene overall.



Siu Lau invades the place where Wei is holding his father hostage. To get in, she foils a guard with the stupidest thing I've ever seen... an ice cream cone. It's wrapped in paper, and she throws it to a guard, he picks it up, unwraps it and starts to eat it when it explodes in his face. That's good humor. What follows is much better kickboxing than before as the cuts lead into eachother more often and the choreography is more complex than the last scene. Dick Wei kicks at Siu Lau as she tumbles all over the floor, then some good kickboxing with joint locks. A short scene but it's still better than the last one. Siu Lau pulls out some tricks to get away, and they follow her and she uses other little gadgets and explosives to finish them off.



Wei and his goons all go to Cheung Yan's house, which is rigged with little traps controlled by him and Siu Lau. It starts out with Yuen jumping out in an opera suit and beats people around with a calligraphy brush while being attached to a wire, which is cooler than it sounds trust me. He scatters away and Siu Lau gets in a costume as well and does some odd fighting with Wei for a second. Wei's party gets beaten and Wei has to take on Lum and her brother. Lum ends up fighting Wei alone, the other guy gets thrown out quickly. Good kicking again by Wei, and some more interesting choreography, but it's cut short by more weird stuff where Yuen sends out some swords to attack Wei, which he beats down, and after that Lum brings out some punching machine (like those punching nuns) and beats Wei with that. Not the best way to end things but at least it's original.



I might as well state also that the music in this is fitting, it's more of a cartoony feel which is how the movie is presented, and the sound effects are unique and sound really cool, though they would only work here.

I would have liked this a LOT MORE had there been more actual kickboxing. Fun stuff is cool, but if you have some bursts of kickboxing and the possibility is there, I'm afraid I'm too conservative and I have to have some old school stuff. There isn't enough good fighting in this to make it one of my favorites, but none the less this is a COMPLETELY unknown movie that people should check out anyways. I mean, it's got Dick Wei in it, and Yuen Cheung Yan finally fights, and he's old. The comedy is great as well, so there's another reason to see it. And if you like gadgets and booby traps, then you'll love this one to death. I'm afraid it's not EXACTLY my thing, but I still enjoyed it. I'd give it a 4 if it had a bit more kickboxing (all of it in the finale would be nice too) OR if there had been more INSANE stuff (like Drunken Wu Tang), but it's better than a 3 because what's there is great and the other stuff is kinda cool too.

3.5/5

Return to the reviews page