venoms5
12-24-2007, 03:49 AM
THE YOUNG VAGABOND 1985 Act. ***1/2 /Blood ***/ Movie **1/2
Liu Chia Hui (Beggar Su Chan), Wong Yu (Su Jia Bao), Wang Lung Wei (Wu Gong), Pai Piao (Liang Hong), Ku Feng, Kuan Feng (Master Bai), Lin Hui Huang (Zhu Chun)
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Two brash students Su Chan and his step brother Su Jia Bao become involved in a plot to rob the Taifeng Bank. Su Chan, who enjoys drinking, is secretly trained by his literary teacher, Liang Hung. Formerly known as the Drunken Tiger, Liang, now an honorable man, is hiding out in autonomy from his former partner, the sadistic rapist/kung fu expert Wu Gong. After several shocking incidents, Su Chan, who now has assumed his historically famous persona of Beggar Su the drunk, attacks Wu Gong and his gang in a final confrontation.
An interesting movie about real life hero Beggar Su, one of the Ten KwangTung Tigers and his days as a young man dealing with foreign influence in his homeland leading up to his inevitable transformation into a drunken master of the martial arts. The first hour is a meandering series of light hearted comical sequences that mine similar territory to Liu Chia Liang's MY YOUNG AUNTIE (1980) which detailed pervasive Anglo influences in Chinese society. Here, it's a bit more omnipresent in the way the young speak (they even have an English teacher), the games they play and the Taifeng Bank has a special foreign security system should the place ever be robbed.
Liu Chia Hui is good as always playing Beggar Su who, according to the film, has been enamored with wine since he was a toddler. I'm not sure how historically accurate the film is, but you really don't learn a whole lot about the character save for his fascination with alcohol. The comedic elements dominate most of the first hour but the film turns unexpectedly nasty during the last 25 minutes leading up to Liu doing battle with Wu Gong in a pretty brutal fight that's all over the place culminating in a final shot that recalls THE THUNDERING MANTIS (1979).
The western aura extends to the action scenes which seemingly does away with traditional Chinese martial arts styles and adopts a more rough, less articulate boxing style for the fights. Whether this was due to the implications of the plot involving curiosity over foreign trappings or simply to copy what Jacky Chan and the GH crew were doing is debatable. Either way, the fights are good and brutal most specially the final half of the film.
Wong Yu hasn't much of a role here aside from being the more promiscuous of the two ultimately getting himself in a dire situation towards the end. He only has one so-so fight during the attempted bank robbery which was a rather nice scene in itself.
Wang Lung Wei, for what little time he gets as per his late entry into the film, steals the show away from everybody else in his portrayal as the clean-obsessed rapist/murderer kung fu master. Shaw's were always good at producing some seriously depraved and downright evil villains, and Wang's Wu Gong is no exception. Some of the violence perpetrated on some of the cast is startling and one or two instances you don't see it coming.
Pai Piao as Liang Hong, the former partner to Wu Gong, is also an asset to the film. Pai has a stoic quality about him similar to Ti Lung and he can convey a believability to either heroic or villainous roles and here, his scenes training the young Su Chan reminds me of the ROCKY films especially the montage including a slow motion run along a beach.
Ku Feng has a throwaway role as Detective Iron Tooth and is around to do nothing more than provide some comic relief to pad the film out until the main action arrives. Admittedly, I got a good chuckle out of the dinner scene with Iron Tooth's family and Su Chan. Other than that, his appearance was a bit wasted.
Kuan Feng fares much less. He plays Master Bai, Wu Gong's new partner in crime. He doesn't get to do much action though, and that's a shame. During the end I was expecting Beggar So to tackle both villains at the same time, but seeing how it plays out, Master Bai isn't much of a master as he attempts to abscond
with Wu's share of the assets from the stolen winery resulting in a swift death from Wu.
Director Liu Shi-yu handles much of the film very well in my opinion and possibly studio pressure kept him from turning this curiosity piece into a truly great movie. Liu directed the highly dramatic and wonderfully executed NEW TALES OF THE FLYING FOX (1984). Some very beautiful scenes in that movie and some of that translates here but it's a bit uneven at times although I did enjoy this movie, I couldn't help but wonder how much better it could have been had Shaw's not lost so much of their audience by this time. They still churned out some great movies, but far too many misteps and films that were just going through the motions dominate much of their 83-85 output.
Overall, THE YOUNG VAGABOND (1985) is an enjoyable enough time waster and has some memorable spots. Shaw completists will find this worthy of a purchase. All others would do best to rent first before buying.
Liu Chia Hui (Beggar Su Chan), Wong Yu (Su Jia Bao), Wang Lung Wei (Wu Gong), Pai Piao (Liang Hong), Ku Feng, Kuan Feng (Master Bai), Lin Hui Huang (Zhu Chun)
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Two brash students Su Chan and his step brother Su Jia Bao become involved in a plot to rob the Taifeng Bank. Su Chan, who enjoys drinking, is secretly trained by his literary teacher, Liang Hung. Formerly known as the Drunken Tiger, Liang, now an honorable man, is hiding out in autonomy from his former partner, the sadistic rapist/kung fu expert Wu Gong. After several shocking incidents, Su Chan, who now has assumed his historically famous persona of Beggar Su the drunk, attacks Wu Gong and his gang in a final confrontation.
An interesting movie about real life hero Beggar Su, one of the Ten KwangTung Tigers and his days as a young man dealing with foreign influence in his homeland leading up to his inevitable transformation into a drunken master of the martial arts. The first hour is a meandering series of light hearted comical sequences that mine similar territory to Liu Chia Liang's MY YOUNG AUNTIE (1980) which detailed pervasive Anglo influences in Chinese society. Here, it's a bit more omnipresent in the way the young speak (they even have an English teacher), the games they play and the Taifeng Bank has a special foreign security system should the place ever be robbed.
Liu Chia Hui is good as always playing Beggar Su who, according to the film, has been enamored with wine since he was a toddler. I'm not sure how historically accurate the film is, but you really don't learn a whole lot about the character save for his fascination with alcohol. The comedic elements dominate most of the first hour but the film turns unexpectedly nasty during the last 25 minutes leading up to Liu doing battle with Wu Gong in a pretty brutal fight that's all over the place culminating in a final shot that recalls THE THUNDERING MANTIS (1979).
The western aura extends to the action scenes which seemingly does away with traditional Chinese martial arts styles and adopts a more rough, less articulate boxing style for the fights. Whether this was due to the implications of the plot involving curiosity over foreign trappings or simply to copy what Jacky Chan and the GH crew were doing is debatable. Either way, the fights are good and brutal most specially the final half of the film.
Wong Yu hasn't much of a role here aside from being the more promiscuous of the two ultimately getting himself in a dire situation towards the end. He only has one so-so fight during the attempted bank robbery which was a rather nice scene in itself.
Wang Lung Wei, for what little time he gets as per his late entry into the film, steals the show away from everybody else in his portrayal as the clean-obsessed rapist/murderer kung fu master. Shaw's were always good at producing some seriously depraved and downright evil villains, and Wang's Wu Gong is no exception. Some of the violence perpetrated on some of the cast is startling and one or two instances you don't see it coming.
Pai Piao as Liang Hong, the former partner to Wu Gong, is also an asset to the film. Pai has a stoic quality about him similar to Ti Lung and he can convey a believability to either heroic or villainous roles and here, his scenes training the young Su Chan reminds me of the ROCKY films especially the montage including a slow motion run along a beach.
Ku Feng has a throwaway role as Detective Iron Tooth and is around to do nothing more than provide some comic relief to pad the film out until the main action arrives. Admittedly, I got a good chuckle out of the dinner scene with Iron Tooth's family and Su Chan. Other than that, his appearance was a bit wasted.
Kuan Feng fares much less. He plays Master Bai, Wu Gong's new partner in crime. He doesn't get to do much action though, and that's a shame. During the end I was expecting Beggar So to tackle both villains at the same time, but seeing how it plays out, Master Bai isn't much of a master as he attempts to abscond
with Wu's share of the assets from the stolen winery resulting in a swift death from Wu.
Director Liu Shi-yu handles much of the film very well in my opinion and possibly studio pressure kept him from turning this curiosity piece into a truly great movie. Liu directed the highly dramatic and wonderfully executed NEW TALES OF THE FLYING FOX (1984). Some very beautiful scenes in that movie and some of that translates here but it's a bit uneven at times although I did enjoy this movie, I couldn't help but wonder how much better it could have been had Shaw's not lost so much of their audience by this time. They still churned out some great movies, but far too many misteps and films that were just going through the motions dominate much of their 83-85 output.
Overall, THE YOUNG VAGABOND (1985) is an enjoyable enough time waster and has some memorable spots. Shaw completists will find this worthy of a purchase. All others would do best to rent first before buying.