Dirty Ho (1979)

A Qing Dynasty prince (Gordon Liu) masquerading as a jewelry dealer thwarts assassination attempts using subtle kung fu skills while duping a petty con artist (Wong Yue) into becoming his pupil in this highly entertaining kung fu comedy from Shaw Brothers and action director Lau Kar-leung. DIRTY HO is loaded with comically absurd and authentic kung fu action ranging from faux crippled masters and a gang of social misfits tangling with Wong Yue for laughs to assassins played by potent screen villains Johnny Wang Lung-wei, Wilson Tong and Lo Lieh all dishing out deadly fighting moves in highly coordinated assaults against Gordon “The Master Killer” Liu.

DIRTY HO is among a string of hit kung fu comedies from action director Lau Kar-leung released between 1975 and 1985, beginning with SPIRITUAL BOXER and ending with DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER. Each film highlights the colorful house style of Shaw Brothers studios. They also highlight Lau’s mastery of Hung Fist kung fu, his taste for promoting the virtues of classical Chinese martial arts in frequently irreverent fashion and the talents of his well-trained, regular line-up of fighting stars.

The title “DIRTY HO” would have fit right in among the many grindhouse attractions on New York’s 42nd Street in 1979, although ultimately not for it’s incidental sexual connotation but for the fantastic kung fu action on display.

The title refers to the character “Ho Jen” (Wong Yue), a Qing-era thief operating in Guangdong province in southern China. He meets a clever jewelry dealer, played by Liu with a dapper mustache, who grabs his stolen goods during a police raid. Unbeknownst to Ho, the dealer is Wang Tsun-hsin, the eleventh prince in line to the current Emperor, who is traveling disguised as a businessman to survey the country’s fine wine, women and antiques.

When Ho attempts to strong-arm Wang into returning the loot, the prince turns the tables on him by channeling superior kung fu skills through a female pipa player (Kara Hui) and causing a superficial wound to Ho’s forehead with a poisoned blade. Thus begins Wang’s efforts to reform the thief by offering to treat the festering wound in exchange for the young man’s oath of loyalty. The Chinese herbal treatment would explain the patch that Wong Yue has stuck to his forehead through most of the movie.

The charm in this set up is how Lau keeps Ho in the dark about his new master’s true identity and fighting ability even as Wang becomes the target of several assassins. The gimmick is that neither Wang nor his attackers want their true identities known to the general public. This becomes the basis for a series of creative kung fu exchanges where Gordon Liu and his onscreen adversaries try to defeat each other without blowing their cover. So, on the surface they continue to smile and appear courteous to one another while the audience can clearly see that each opponent is maneuvering into a position to kill the other.

On a side note, it’s possible that Lau got the idea for having a Qing prince mingling with commoners from legends surrounding Emperor Chien Lung who was said to have wandered into the southern parts of China several times while disguised as a commoner. These legends became the basis for a series of action comedies produced by Shaw Brothers beginning in 1976 with EMPEROR CHIEN LUNG.

The first example of Lau’s use of subtle kung fu is a fight between Liu and Wong Yue. Kung fu actress Kara Hui has only a small role in this film as a pipa player but has a memorable performance here as she becomes a puppet of Liu in his fight against Wong. The idea is that the prince wants the con artist to think that the girl has the kung fu skills, not him. Hui pretends to be nothing but a hapless bystander caught up in this fracas but in reality she is doing her own highly-trained choreography in tandem with Liu against Wong. This highlights another awesome aspect of the fight work in this film, which is Lau’s use of three or more screen fighters working together very tightly in a single, masterfully coordinated sequence.

In the second fight, Liu takes on the first two assassins played by veteran kung fu screen villain Johnny Wang Lung-wei and acrobatic MAD MONKEY KUNG FU star Hsiao Hou. Wang pretends to be a wine reseller inviting Liu to taste his product while using various cups and a folding fan to press his attack with a gentlemanly guise. Hsiao’s contribution is in performing highly acrobatic, monkey-like attacks.

Liu’s next challenge comes from another skilled kung fu heavy, Wilson Tong. He pretends to be an antiques dealer showing his wares to Liu while really trying to slice him open with blades that are sown into the soles of his kung fu shoes. He is backed up by several extras with blades sticking out of the ends of their shoes. This sequence grants Lau an opportunity to show off the fancy footwork of southern Shaolin kung fu. The key to appreciating this sequence is in noticing the very solid, balanced stances of the two adversaries as they trade kicks. While there are some high kicks and flips mixed in for visual effect, this is a very different sort of legwork from the northern Taekwondo styling of stars like Dorian Tan and Hwang Jang-lee yet no less effective or entertaining. Another memorable example of this low-kicking, southern style would be the “skirt” kung fu sequence performed by Jackie Chan in THE YOUNG MASTER.

All three of these subtle kung fu sequences are grounded in a tradition of wuxia storytelling where opponents in the jiang hu, or martial underworld would occasionally meet in a setting where they wished their identities and/or abilities to remain unknown to the general public. Often, a test of skill would take place that might go unnoticed by bystanders yet could be used by fighters to determine each other’s fighting capability without actually crossing swords. Ang Lee also paid homage to this convention in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON when Michelle Yeoh dropped a cup to test the reflexes of Zhang Ziyi’s character.

No Lau Kar-leung movie would be complete without a great training sequence. This one sees a wounded Liu teaching Wong advanced fighting techniques so that his pupil can help him fend off his attackers long enough to return safely to the palace. Wong Yue is forced to balance small oil lamps on his shoulders while kicking a pole inside of a box lined with lit candles. No pain, no gain as they say.

Perhaps choosing not to turn the film into another training film like so many kung fu movies of the day, Lau breaks up this pleasant little study with one of the strangest kung fu battles ever conceived of. A gang known as the “Seven Bitters” tries to haul Liu in and ends up battling Wong Yue in a rather unconventional way. They’re a gang of oddballs led by an effeminate nancy boy with the implied ability to turn his opponent into a make-up wearing nancy boy too. The other three weirdoes are made up of a dexterous biter, a fatty who can absorb any blow and what might be considered the world’s first emo kung fu fighter, a sad-face played by Peter Chan who cries and slaps Wong Yue until he cries too.

This is one of those throwaway sequences that make no sense in the context of any story but it’s amusing nevertheless simply because it’s so bizarre and relies on highly exaggerated caricatures unique to Cantonese-language comedy. The style is reminiscent of some of the nonsense kung fu comedy with mild supernatural suggestions that Lau introduced in THE SPIRITUAL BOXER. This proves yet again that Lau was a trendsetter in the martial arts genre for in later years Yuen Woo-ping picked up this strange brand of kung fu comedy and ran wild with it in films such as MIRACLE FIGHTERS and SHAOLIN DRUNKARD.

Wong Yue gets into a similar fight earlier with “The Four Handicap Devils,” Lau’s parody of Chang Cheh’s CRIPPLED AVENGERS and ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN. The gang is made up of fighters pretending to be crippled. One pretends to be missing an arm and mimics Jimmy Wang Yu who portrayed the original One-Armed Swordsman. Gags like these are clearly intended for audiences familiar with what had become genre stereotypes by 1979.

Lau caps the film with two more memorable fight sequences. The first one sees Wong Yue escorting Liu in a custom wheelchair through a set made up to look like a hilltop. The pair is ambushed by archers but come prepared with protective umbrellas to repel the aerial assault. They then proceed to battle their way through the attackers while Liu fights from his wheelchair. This sequence seems directed again at Lau’s former mentor Chang Cheh. At the time, Chang was shooting kung fu movies with the “Venoms Mob” and action director Robert Tai. They were increasingly pushing the limits of genre action with cartoony martial arts action mixing wuxia, Chinese opera and Japanese superhero conventions. Lau usually stayed closer to his formal kung fu roots but did like to stray into this territory from time to time, especially in THE EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER.

The film comes to magnificent end with Liu and Wong Yue taking on Lo Lieh in what becomes a fierce weapons duel between the pole and bladed kwan dao. Liu and Wong Yue end up working together in another brilliant example of tandem kung fu forms, similar to some of the action produced by actioner director Sammo Hung and rival studio Golden Harvest in ODD COUPLE. This could also be seen as a prelude to Lau’s ultimate weapons film, LEGENDARY WEAPONS OF CHINA.

It’s interesting to note that at the end we never get to know the person who ordered the assassination of Gordon Liu’s character. It doesn’t really matter. It’s merely a thin plot device to provide Lau with an excuse to have his heroes battle it out with bad guys. Lau was never big on strong narrative or meaningful drama and DIRTY HO is probably one of the best examples. Yet far from being a fault, this allows us to focus on simply enjoying the fighting spectacle in its many forms.

This film is best viewed as a sampler platter, like one of those appetizer dishes you get at a restaurant that’s stacked with mozzarella sticks, chicken tenders, onions rings, and other assorted deep-fried goodies. With so many different kung fu elements thrown together within such a loose story, it ends up being an excellent cross-representation of Lau family filmmaking and the kung fu comedy genre. In this way, I’d heartily suggest this film as an entry point to viewers interested in the films of Lau Kar-leung. You’ll find he expands on almost every aspect of DIRTY HO in his other films. You’ll also find more elaborate fighting performances from each of his stars, although this film does provide Gordon Liu with one of his most well-rounded acting and fighting performances. Yet what you may not find is another kung fu movie as broadly satisfying on so many different levels as DIRTY HO. This is without a doubt a kung fu movie classic on every level and highly recommended to even casual genre fans.

Buyer’s Note: Pirate distributor Pan Media/Red Sun, known for releasing shoddy knockoffs of legitimate DVDs, has released an unlicensed and unauthorized bootleg of Celestial Picture’s remastered print to a variety of reputable retailers in the U.S. including Amazon and HKFlix. Buyers are strongly urged to bypass this version and to instead seek out a licensed, English-subtitled version of the remastered print issued from Deltamac or Intercontinental Video Limited. Until a licensed U.S. release is issued, those interested in original English-dub versions should seek out private collectors for out-of-print versions that are not remastered.

Related Topics: Dirty Ho (1979), Gordon Liu, Johnny Wang, Kara Hui, kung fu comedy, Lau Kar-Leung, Lo Lieh, Qing Dynasty, Shaw Brothers, Wilson Tong, Wong Yue