Love, betrayal and fantasy kung fu unfolds in Men of the Hour, a character-driven independent production from Taiwan that’s light on action and heavy on clan intrigue. This film is essentially a soap opera wuxia pian, yet with fists replacing swords. The plot is better than your standard indie kung fu revenger flick with director Chan Ming-wa attempting to raise the bar on the acting and dramatics, but it’s still not good enough to replace solid kung fu action, something dearly missing here.
A scheduled martial arts contest atop a booby-trapped building provides the backdrop for the story of a martial artist (Charlie Chin) wrongfully accused of murdering his master and his clan mates’ efforts to get revenge on him. The contest has little impact on the story, but does provide an opportunity for Cliff Lok to make a brief and over-the-top appearance as Chin’s opponent. The major story sees a tortured Chin finding work at a brothel under the name of “Idiot.” While there, he has all the girls aflutter, including the manager who tries to talk him into a relationship and Nora Miao, as the prostitute with the heart of gold. Lo Lieh appears as a top fighter for the brothel owner, who has a thing for the manager and is eventually ordered to get rid of Chin. It’s not a particularly great role for Lo and his end fight is unremarkable. Back at the kung fu clan, Pearl Cheung leads the search for Chin, but also fields the possibility that someone else in the clan is the real killer. Cheung and her associates eventually get the truth out of an informer and meet up again with Chin, who is now free to fight in the contest.
All of this romance and intrigue is handled with the sophistication of a Neanderthal, but that’s to be expected. What is more humorous and disappointing is the ridiculousness of the combat, which comes off as amateur for the most part. Basic punches knock fighters into trees and back into walls. The best the filmmakers can muster is a fight featuring Cheung, who has a duel with an assassin and uses her braided hair to counter his roped weapon by yanking him over her head. Somehow, her hair magically grows in length during this scene. Fighters cannot just walk into a scene, but must fly into the air and perform a series of aerial flips first. The sparing is rudimentary at best and any real stunt work is dominated by acrobatics, rather than specific martial abilities. Fights are also often clipped short or anti-climatic. Capping all of this off is very obvious undercranking of all the fight scenes, which speeds the fighters up to unnatural levels.
One area that Men of the Hour excels at is with its use of funky, ’70s-style “oriental” music. Had this been combined with even more unreal and exaggerated action and less talky talky, we’d have something more entertaining. I also would have loved to have seen more booby trap action. They did a pretty good job with what was shown. The collapsing stairs are a kick. The film isn’t a total waste of time, but its mix of too much serious drama and lightweight kung fu makes it difficult to recommend to anyone but diehard genre collectors.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
Genre: Kung Fu
- Ricky Baker
