Legend of a Fighter
April 30, 2001
Review
Format: Subtitled Cropped VCD
Stars: Lueng Ka Yan, Yasuaki Kurata, Phillip Ko Fei, Yuen Yat Chor

Leung Ka Yan was once a miserable know-nothing who had no chance at the family style of kung fu, but met Kurata who taught him the essentials and how to break out of the narrow mindedness of his own father.

Actually, this story is the most dramatic I've ever seen out of Yuen Woo Ping and his brothers. It's tightly centered around the spread of fighting styles and how people mustn't be closed up when teaching their styles. Also there's a strong sense of family here that I could really feel and it brought the movie to a great climax. Actually, there wasn't a TON of fighting in this, which was good in its own respect. I mean, it's more than 90% of the movies out of the 1980's (this was at the beginning of the decade), but it doesn't have the substance of Knockabout. Instead, it's got real story, drama, life lessons, etc, things I would have liked to see more of in this time period.

But sadly... the damn vcd I bought is cropped, and you actually miss quite a bit because of this. Nonetheless, you can't help but be entertained.

But enough of that. When speaking of action, this one delivers furiously. Everyone is sharp, Leung Ka Yan seems to be at his peak here (he matches his performance in The Victim which was almost the same time I believe), where he does less intricate handwork than in The Victim, but he uses more kicking this time, a fair trade if you ask me. Phillip Ko, the guy is kinda funny if you've seen him. He's aweful now, and I found it hard to take him seriously at first in this, but he's so good here, true to form, totally serious. There's a fight in the beginning with him where he shows off his family style against a tiger practicioner. Some standard YWP style fighting here, Ko sits in a chair and fighs while drinking tea, etc. He goes into what looks like wing chun, only he wraps the opponents arms around like they're string, really impressive stuff, not many cuts, good camerawork.



Ko shows us some of the Huo family fist he keeps so secret. Some cool techniques like the loose fingers and the camerawork is original in many spots. Short thing. Kurata later imitates what he saw from Ko.



The scene that comes next was what I had been waiting for. Yat Chor battles with a bully who always bothered him and throws in some nice technique, I even saw some Japanese moves in there (Kurata is his teacher, anyways). He beats the bully but is attacked then by the bully's master, and Kurata takes over and goes ballistic. Nice kicking as expected, and his punches are super fast, I never saw Kurata like this before. He keeps his form amazingly well too. When the YWP slomo kicked in with his gigantic jumping axe kick, I jumped up and cheered. Nobody should tamper with him. What a showcase for him.



Yuen Yat Chor turns into Leung Ka Yan, who portrays his future self. I don't believe I've ever seen this done before in HK film. Add to that, HE SHAVED! Wow, he looks way different. His house is invaded by an Eagle practicioner and fights against one of Ko's students, who is defeated easily. Here's more good choreography, Woo Ping uses the whole bodies of the fighters in this, typical of him. Ka Yan intervenes and does wing chun-esque moves for a bit really well. Somehow I doubt he has no martial arts experience, his movements are on par with everyone else in this. He's doubled for crazy stuff but that doesn't bother me much. Lots of weird acrobatics too from the other guy (or his double, didn't look liks his hair), chained together flawlessly. Ka Yan throws a few kicks and heroically defeats him and befriends the man.



Surprisingly, Fung Hak On makes an appearance as a weird kind of British boxer in a ship, but the odd thing is that this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except maybe Leung learns the power of the waste in Chinese martial arts. Yuen Cheung Yan fights him too, who isn't sporting his usual buck teath (a nice change). Not much really, Hak On does some falls and really BAD 'western boxing' which is supposed to glorify the Chinese styles, Cheung Yan doesn't do much special except where he manages to steal Hak On's bow tie by rolling over him.



The typical beat-the-white-guy thing happens too when Leung goes against a Russian boxer. Leung is handicapped, the Russian is a big oaf and clearly is not a real boxer, he's in terrible shape and can't move. Leung beats him stupidly with 2 hits and breaks throgh his own glove.



Leung is then challenged by a Japanese Karate master, who has some mean strength in all of his attacks. First he has a buddy do the fighting with a sword, who is simple for Leung, who does some more kicking than usual here, not bad kicking either. When he fights the Karate master, there's a lot of good choreography that is able to give Karate a fair chance against Leung's style. It's portrayed as really strong, chained together, but Leung manages to penetrate the man's attacks and get inside everything. Woo Ping did the camerawork correctly for this as well, invoking the element of surprise when Leung happens upon something. Leung does more kicking, which is fast, and there is some very nice choreography here, beat based as well so it's easy to get into. Fast punches from Leung, he has strong arms which are shown at various times during the film, sometimes taking this villian with one hand. Only in The Victim did I see Leung in such a high ranking character role, wish it could have been more often. This whole scene lasts around five minutes, which is practically non-stop.



What happens next is the main story part of the film. Kurata comes back to fight against Leung and defeat him, and we get to see a brutal training scene with Kurata taking beatings, doing wrist pushups, and massaging his shins (ow). Following that is the big finale.



The finale starts off very dramatically, with Kurata playing the Japanese equivalent to the harp, whatever it's called. It starts out with Kurata completely stealing the show, and if it was Leung the entire time, he was outdone. Kurata is clearly the better fighter here, when he kicks (high or low) and so does Leung, Kurata's foot is flat on the ground, Leung is on his toes. Nothing against Leung though. He comes back and does great handwork (which is his specialty anyways, Kurata is a kicker). Kurata even does his own stunts I believe, including an hk spin, some back falls, etc. Leung, later in the fight, is able to deliver faster kicks, some of them arial. But there isn't a whole lot of choreography and sometimes it gets silly, like when Kurata picks up the tatami mats inside the dojo and makes a little cell, and then jumps on top of it. Weird. They even recycle some of the footage (Leung does the same reverse headbutt twice at different times). However, the overall power of the scene dominates all other parts of the movie, with the struggle between the two of them, clearly not wishing to kill eachother and I almost cried at the outcome. Very impressive scene, if not a bit short on choreography. The feel of it is unlike anything I've experienced in an HK film.



Overall I was totally satisfied with this YWP piece. Leung Ka Yan did extremely well at being a showpiece for Chinese martial arts, Kurata was, as expected, awesome. His screen presence dominated everyone else's, and Phillip Ko had the smallest influence on the film really. Everything came together very well in the end and it just goes to show that a good HK movie doesn't just have to have action.

5/5

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