Awesome choreography, decent plot
David Koski | San Jose, CA United States | 12/15/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Sammo Hung and Ka-Yan Leung team up tofight Ka-Yan's evil big brother (complete with eye patch). Well, team up is maybe the wrong way to put it -- Sammo becomes Ka-Yan's student but Ka-Yan doesn't accept him, in fact he wants to kill him. This film has pretty decent plot of revenge with a few twists.The choreography is incredible, as Sammo's work usually is. There is plenty of action, acrobatics, and yes, some fighting. OK, plenty of fighting! The camera work was good too -- nice long shots during fights.As an added bonus, you get to see Sammo dress up as Dracula. Not a typical hopping vampire, but real Dracula with crosses, garlic, fake teeth, the works!The video quality was so-so. On the plus side, this was wide screen & anamorphic. On the minus side, there were a lot of little glitches, probably from the original film. Sound was dubbed and seemed very loud."
I have watched the final fight like 20 times now, I think th
morgoth | omaha, NE | 06/10/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I will certainly get to the final fight. But this is a very strange early work from sammo. It is obviously one of his cheaper movies if you compare it to say Warriors Two or the Prodigal Son. The movie itself I would give a 4 but really good action ALL the way through. Weapon work, comedy and a finale that will cause you to have a seizure if you are not used to this kind of stuff. If you don't know of Leung Ka Yan, then you certainly won't miss him after reading this. He is the guy with the beard. Not a martial artist by trade, but he looks tougher than 99% of the actors that have ever been in a kung fu movie. He is so fluid not missign a SINGLE beat in a final fight that lasts about 20 minutes. And then I had no idea that Chang Yi playing the big brother villian had thsi in him. Even with an eyepatch on I have to say that this is his best performance. That would literally take weeks to get used to and chang yi certainly shows no weakness in this brilliant fightfest. Wilson Tong shows up for the first of a three part series of fights at the end.
And so much credit has to be given to Yuen Biao and the stunt/martial arts coordinators as a whole because an extra effort is certainly beign put into this just like when we saw jackie double for the japanese guy in teh revolutionary Chinese Connection(Fist of Fury) and fly through the air 15 feet. This is truly a fight of epic proportions and should not be missed by a single soul.
Now the story I would rate like a 2.5/5 but the movie as a whole a 4. There is a wonderfuly stupid scene where Sammo shows up as Dracula to scare off people so he can retrieve a body. I would never watch that part again, or wait, maybe I would.
The commentary on the tai seng version is REALLY good as Bobby Samuels was a protoge of Sammo and Ric Myers throws in a few helpful tidbits."
Action!
morgoth | 10/01/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This movie has one of the best fight sequences of all Kung Fu Movie History, although Sammo does not play the main characters he adds the comic relief as always. This is a msut see!!!!!!"
The Greatest Kung Fu Film ever made
Sleeping Dragon | Puyallup, WA United States | 06/19/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Is that enough in the title? The choreography of this film, along with a tight screenplay, moving characters, plot twists, comedy, did I mention choreography? This is simply the best martial arts film ever made. Sammo should get more credit, because he's come out with AWESOME films and has yet to make his mark on mainstream America (Martial Law doesn't count, "TV chews up genius" )Maybe with Soul Caliber, which he is directing, will put him over the top (if they do it right, meaning, let him handle ALL of the action sequences, from planning to camera work) Enough, I can't say enough about this film. I've had it since 1983, and I still watch it. The only film I've seen more is Enter the Dragon, and that's only because it was out longer. The Victim is by far the best martial arts film ever made, bar none."