GALLANTS (Hong Kong, 2010)
Directed by: Derek Kwok & Clement Cheng
Starring: Wong Yue-nam, Bruce Leung Siu-lung, Chen Kuan-tai, Teddy Robin

When directors Derek Kwok and Clement Cheng were trying to raise money to shoot GALLANTS they were told over and over again, “No one wants to see a movie starring a bunch of washed up has-beens.” Eventually Hong Kong’s legendary pop star and actor, Andy Lau (INFERNAL AFFAIRS, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS), put up the money and the result is a movie that may star a bunch of washed-up has-beens, but it's also the most ass-kicking, hard rocking, pedal to the metal, ill-est, sickest, fastest and funniest movies of the year. Imagine COCOON with kung fu and you've got the idea.

Office dog, Cheung (Wong Yue-nam), fails at everything, has asthma and is despised by everyone around him. As punishment for being alive he’s sent to one of Hong Kong’s rural backwaters to help his boss’s greedy, property developer buddies kick a bunch of old timers out of a run down tea house so it can be bulldozed. But these aren’t just any old timers. The teahouse used to be a martial art’s studio called The Gate of Law, and its owners are Dragon (Chen Kuan-tai) and Tiger (Bruce Leung) who are trying to hold on until their master, Master Law (Teddy Robin), wakes up from his 30-year coma.

These names may not mean much to American audiences, but Chen Kuan-tai, now in his 60’s, was Shaw Brother’s most iconic leading man and Bruce Leung, now 62, started his career as a Bruce Lee imitator in the early 70’s, but went on to become one of the screen’s most celebrated martial artists. Teddy Robin may only be four feet tall, but he’s the man who invented Chinese rock n’roll, an actor, a producer and, at 65 he’s still not slowing down (he even wrote and performed the music for this film). And GALLANTS is stuffed with appearances by other martial arts stars of yesteryear: real-life gangster turned-actor, Chan Wai-man plays the evil Master Poon; Lo Meng (aka Turbo Law) was one of the Five Deadly Venoms; and Susan Shaw, playing Dr. Fun, was a softcore sexpot back in the day.

Now in their 60's, these stars of the 70's know how to own the screen. Chen Kuan-tai plays up his heroic image, then turns on a dime and undermines it. Bruce Leung's lifetime of injuries make him the unlikeliest action star in the world, but he's developed a personal style that turns his aching joints into advantages. And Teddy Robin can slap someone in the head 500 different ways, each slap as unique and expressive as a note played on a Stradivarius. But GALLANTS isn't just a wallow in nostalgia, it's a movie that resurrects the true martial arts spirit. Because you can run and run from your problems, but eventually you're going to have to stand up and fight. GALLANTS is all about a bunch of "washed-up has-beens" and a few young "never-was's" who know one thing: the world crushes people who don't fight back. And even if they've waited until their joints creak and their backs ache and their hair is gray, it's never too late to take a stand and face your troubles with a raised fist and kung fu cry on your lips.