The “Chinese” in the English title is important and not obvious: Jimmy Wang Yu’s character is first and foremost a symbol of Chinese resilience, diligence, martial arts skill, and honor, in contrast to those nasty, usurping Japanese bastards whose eyes he has the pleasure of gouging out by the end of the film. The politics here form not so much a subtext as a pretext: the patently Chinese actors standing in for pale, mop-topped karate experts from the Land of the Rising Sun are explicitly portrayed as vampires, whose kung-fu is only admirable because it is Chinese-based (or so it is claimed), but whose bellicose nature is utterly inhuman.
All of this obvious racism and propaganda make for a thoroughly entertaining film, of course (a decidedly unpleasant midfilm rape scene notwithstanding), and is nearly plotless by its final third, in which the hitherto dorky Jimmy Wang Yu starts thrashing through karate fighters like so many paper tigers.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Shaw Brothers / Celestial Pictures VCD
11 Dec 2006 12:04 PM | Submit Comment
