Wong Fei-hung (Kwan Tak-hing) and his student (Sammo Hung) aid a promising young martial artist (Carter Wong) in Thailand and take on a local crime boss and his thugs.

For roughly 25 years, Kwan Tak-hing had entertained Chinese audiences as martial arts folk hero Wong Fei-hung in nearly 100 films. It was one of the longest-running franchises in film history and it ended in 1970 as a younger generation of kung fu screen heroes took over. In 1974, Golden Harvest staged a “comeback” for Tak-hing by pairing him with a young Sammo Hung and tapping into the gritty semi-realistic boxer kung fu made popular by Bruce Lee. The Skyhawk was the first of several films including The Magnificent Butcher (1979), the Magnificent Kick (1980), and Dreadnought (1981) featuring Tak-hing in essentially encore reprisals of this familiar role.

Although featuring a lot of doubling, The Skyhawk offers Tak-hing’s best post-Wong Fei-hung series performance, a combination of his uniquely austere portrayal and Sammo’s high-impact martial arts choreography. Seeing Tak-hing, Sammo and Carter Wong all in the same shot no more than thirty seconds in is certainly a terrific way to start.

After a brief run-in on the road with a harried brawler named Leo (Carter Wong), Fei-hung (AKA Skyhawk) and his student Fatty (Sammo Hung) arrive in Bangkok to find him beaten by a rival martial artist (Whang In-shik). While they attend to his wounds and work on their kung fu training, a local crime boss named Ku (Chiu Hung), who hires the martial artist, begins making trouble for Fei-hung’s foreman friend by trying to force his laborers to join his crooked union. When the foreman investigates the death of a worker, he becomes Ku’s next target. Fei-hung stresses the importance of tolerance and patience to Leo and Fatty, but they’re pushed to the limit by Ku and his thugs when Fatty’s sister is assaulted and her husband’s gambling addiction is exploited in order to seize their restaurant. After Fatty and the foreman are killed trying to recover the deed to the restaurant, Fei-hung and Leo confront Ku and his thugs.

In truth, there is nothing too remarkable about this film unless you have some appreciation for the Wong Fei-hung mythos. This is before Sammo Hung developed his own voice as a filmmaker and while the martial arts action is not bad, it lacks the smarminess and creativity of his late ’70s films. Likewise, his character is downright bland (although seeing him killed is a rarity). Carter Wong on the other hand displays much of what made him a success in many of Joseph Kuo’s late ’70s films, namely charisma, intensity, and strength, but on a smaller scale. He performs a leg-lock take down towards the end that is spectacular. Golden Harvest throws in Nora Miao for that not-so-subtle-post-Bruce Lee-exploitation flavor. She’s an attractive lady and all, but really has no purpose here except to flap her eyelashes in Carter’s direction.

Now, Kwan Tak-hing is another story. Most fans are more familiar with Jet Li’s portrayal of Wong Fei-hung in the Once Upon a Time in China series. Looking at Tak-hing’s aged frame and passive stance on martial arts they may dismiss his performance and that’s a shame. No other actor has spent so much time with the character. He offers a mature and traditionally Chinese portrayal more in keeping with the philosophy of kung fu, and possibly with the real Fei-hung – that is, to practice kung fu for health and defense, and fighting back only as a last resort. He even allows Whang to pour scalding-hot water over his head without flinching in the film’s most powerful moment. This attitude certainly irks Carter who openly questions the man’s heroic reputation, which for a student to take such tact is a major offense. But Tak-hing’s Fei-hung is a bigger man who understands human nature. Unfortunately, the film never really rewards Tak-hing’s restraint for in the end he has to fight all of the men who baited him in the first place. Therefore, the filmmakers fall short by simply presenting another revenge-themed kung fu movie, but Tak-hing still comes out looking all the wiser.

His main foil is Whang In-shik, one of the genre’s earliest kicking dynamos, who with long gray hair, a fierce demeanor and strong leg work looks like a prototype Hwang Jang-lee. His more dynamic style of martial arts isn’t really suited to Tak-hing, but Sammo credibly makes it work by having Tak-hing specialize in deflection and throws rather than trying to match Whang’s blows. This has the added advantage of reinforcing Tak-hing’s emphasis on non-aggression.

The Skyhawk is surprisingly bloody for a film starring Kwan Tak-hing and probably shocked a few of his old fans upon its initial release. In his mostly family-friendly series, Tak-hing usually resolved conflict without bloodshed. But in this film, the villains cruelly knife multiple victims, assault women and threaten others by tying them to logs rolling towards deadly saws. Carter gives no quarter to them in the end and Tak-hing offers only a single objection to killing. This reflects the trends set by Chang Cheh’s massively bloody epics at Shaw Brothers and the semi-real violence made popular by Bruce Lee. Tak-hing’s performance seems a little out of step with this level of violence, but his role still manages to work well enough.

The plot rambles a bit and the action isn’t frequent enough or massively entertaining, but The Skyhawk is a solid picture that holds together quite well on the strength of Kwan Tak-hing’s presence.

by

Related Topics:
 •   •