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Sick Product of a Sick System

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Set during World War II in Japanese occupied China, a group of resistance fighters hit back at the invading oppressors and their Chinese collaborators.This is another in the long line of martial arts action movies that came out of south-east Asia in the 70's. There is nothing truthfully especially good about this one and it follows the well-worn formula of good guys against evil rulers. If there was one angle that this one had that was a little distinctive though, it is the fact that it features a fighting competition which is set up by the Japanese with nefarious motives in mind, where various characters combat each other using different martial arts styles. To that end we have judo, karate, sumo and kung-fu all used against each other. Look out too for another common feature of this sub-genre where we have bits of famous music from big American films simply spliced into the flow. In this case it was the remarkably unsuitable pioneering synth music from A Clockwork Orange (1971) that finds itself scoring a bit of the action.

The Japanese have taken over China (well, this part of China at least) and are throwing their weight about the place, making the locals none too happy (except for the locals who side with them). It's up to our hero and his female sidekick and their teacher, and some other guys (one of which is a young man in an old man mask - don't ask) to sort them out.However, the Japenese ain't daft and set up a fighting tournament so that their best guys can waste any good fighters in town, therefore eliminating any threats to them. So you get kung fu versus karate, sumo and judo, which isn't something you encounter often in martial arse films.There's not much story but plenty of fighting, and a good few mega-massacres to keep you going. Our hero is also a bit handy with a sword so that gets the bodies piling right up too. Very violent, even for a kung fu film.There's never a dull minute in this one and it was a nice surprise for me to pull a film out at random and have it turn out to be this good.

This movie was decent only because it maintains a steady flow of action.There's a pretty generic plot of a town being subjugated by a corrupt ruler, in this case it's the Japanese army during World War II. Of course our hero is an amazing fighter but is reluctant to enter a battle.My version was horrendously dubbed to the point where at times I didn't really understand what was going on. But I'm not hard to please and the film delivers plenty of kung fu fighting.There's nothing funny in the plot, but there were several instances of campy dialogue and general poor production that were unintentionally hilarious.If you have 90 minutes to kill and you like kung fu movies, you can do a lot worse.

Given that this is dubbed and contains a number of stereotypes in it, this isn't a bad plot. I would have rated it a bit higher if the political incorrectness wasn't so obvious, with no comment on whether it is realistic or not.The dubbing is fairly well done and is not terribly noticeable. Lots of fight scenes and other than being rather one sided in the outcome, the choreography is fairly realistic. Weapons include a scale mail cloak, Japanese and Chinese swords, knives and bayonets on rifles in addition to numerous makeshift items.Fighters include Japanese specialists in judo, karate and sumo fighting local champions. Character development is reasonable and the invaders are put to rout. No real comic relief anywhere in this movie. Abrupt ending in the cut I saw.