A gang of ruthless fighters led by Hwang Jang-lee are out to get their hands on the 36 Deadly Styles manual and kill its owners. As their victims fall one by one, only a young fighter, a soy milk seller and her father are left to oppose them.
If you’re looking for the quintessential old school kung fu film, then THE 36 DEADLY STYLES comes pretty darn close to hitting the mark. This low-budget winner is packed with quality kung fu action, wacky hair, memorable lines (subtitled and dubbed), comedy, and talented genre stars Jack Long, Mark Long, Bolo Leung, superkicker Hwang Jang-lee, and the uncontrollable lunacy of Chan Lau.
The pace and tone of the film is immediately made clear with an opening fight in the woods as Wah-jee (Cheung Lik) and his uncle (Sham Chin-bo) attempt to flee from ruthless fighters led by a deliciously wormy Chan Lau as Mien Tsu-mun. The pair makes it to a Buddhist temple but the uncle croaks after Tsu-mun and his thugs break in. A fighter-turned-monk named Huang (Yeung Chak-lam) manages to kill most of them. Once recovered from his wounds, Wah-jee is put to work at the temple, making soy milk runs into town and cleaning out the smoke-filled oven when he isn’t clowning around with two junior monks or trading friendly kung fu blows with Tsui-jee (Jeanie Chang), the attractive soy milk seller.
As always, trouble comes calling when Tsu-mun returns to the area with two martial brothers (including Bolo Leung) in crazy wigs who begin snooping around. Fed up with the torturous regimen of chores at the temple, Wah-jee leaves but overhears Tsu-mun’s plans to kill Huang and decides to warn his mentor. A nasty fight ensues that Wah-jee survives only after he’s forcibly pulled away by Tsui-jee’s father (Fan Mei-sheng).
At this point, Wah-jee learns that his own father died at the hands of a silver-haired fighter played by Korean superkicker Hwang Jang-lee who belongs to the same group as Tsu-mun. Three martial brothers initially escaped Jang-lee’s attack, but now only Tsui-jee’s father remains. Wah-jee, Tsui-jee and her father go into hiding where Wah-jee begins to master the 36 Deadly Styles just in time to face Jang-lee.
There is also a smaller parallel plot interwoven with the previous one involving a brother of Jang-lee who heads off to a Tibetan temple to seek out a kung fu master named Kaung Wu Chun (Jack Long) in order to get the manual of 36 Deadly Styles. The brief confrontation leads to a great bonus fight near the end of the film
As the young hero, Cheung Lik is nothing special but doesn’t detract from the film. Like so many lesser female stars in Hong Kong, Jeanie Chang is a short timer who performs well but doesn’t get a chance to leave her mark. Fan Mei-sheng, with his unmistakable barrel chest is a former Shaw Brothers workhorse who isn’t a great fighter but is a great character actor. Chan Lau is the supporting actor that is really on fire in this film. His performance as a living caricature is inspiring as he delivers the most entertaining performance and gets in more than his fair share of fun kung fu licks. That leaves the big guns including Bolo Leung sporting an unforgettable golden mop head for a wig.
Apart from an opening shot, Hwang Jang-lee doesn’t show up until midway through the film. He makes up for his absence with a solid fight with Cheung Lik at the end. Yet this film barely scratches the surface of his incredible abilities. Lastly, there is one of my favorite kung fu actors, Jack Long (THE WORLD OF DRUNKEN MASTER). His role as an aging master is very small and seemingly unrelated to the rest of the film but he has one notable fight worth seeing.
A highlight of THE 36 DEADLY STYLES is the colorful names of various kung fu forms that our heroes perform. The “Gluey Style,” “8 Fairy Fist,” “Two Snakes Depart From the Grave,” and “Lying Under the Blue Sky to Play Bamboo Flute” are the best examples.
The training sequence near the end is better than average with a nice trick where Wah-jee is required to shove his hands through a bamboo fence in order to toughen them and channel his qi energy. This training comes in handy (no pun intended) as he faces Jang-lee. The end fight did feature one disappointing aspect. Wah-jee uses smoke from smoldering hay to distract Jang-lee in order to beat him. With the talent involved in this film, I think a more plausible and satisfying finishing tactic could have been devised.
THE 36 DEADLY STYLES can be tossed up as another modest hit for independent director Joseph Kuo. While unable to match the films of Shaw Brothers for scale or Golden Harvest for emerging talent, Kuo should be commended for generally sticking to what worked best given the circumstances, and for collecting some of the best talent available. The film is very conventional by genre standards with little to add but it presents the tried and true formula very well, apart from a mildly confusing mix of plots. Plus, it has almost non-stop fighting from start to finish with the number of moves in each take averaging about eight. This is much more than what most films today attempt. This is a kung fu film made for kung fu fans.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Bolo Yeung • Fan Mei-sheng • Genre: Kung Fu • Hong Hwa International Films • Hwang Jang-Lee • Jack Long • Joseph Kuo • Mark Long • The 36 Deadly Styles (1980) • Videos
