Shaolin Kung Fu (93 min; 1974)
Produced and Directed by: Joseph Kuo
Starring: Wen Chiang-lung, Yi Yuan, Liu Hsiu-yun
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After the wu xia resurgence of the late Sixties, Jimmy Wong-yu changed everything with his Shaw Brothers hit, The Chinese Boxer (1970), playing an angry young man who really hates the Japanese sleazebags who killed his master and decides to murder them all with his kung fu. That dovetailed nicely with Bruce Lee’s box office-shattering kung fu flicks of ’72 and ’73, and suddenly everyone wanted pissed-off poor dudes with badass brawler skills, bashing open the skulls of their oppressors, and Joseph Kuo was there to deliver. He and flying kick specialist Wen Chiang-lung made seven movies together between 1972 and 1974, including Rikisha Kuri (1973) in which Wen plays a rickshaw driver navigating his conflict with an evil rival rickshaw company, on the one hand, and his vow to his wife not to fight, on the other. One year later, they remade Rikisha Kuri as Shaolin Kung Fu only this time…Wen’s wife is blind!
Ah Feng (Wen Chiang-lung) has the puffy hair, sensual lips, and eyelinered eyes of a Cantopop star, but he’s also got the battling skills of Bruce Lee, only they’re all bottled up inside because his dumb blind wife made him swear not to fight because, as we learn in a flashback, her Dad got killed fighting. (Quick note: her Dad has some connection to Shaolin Temple and that is literally the only time it’s mentioned in this film but, hey, Shaolin was popular at the box office and Joseph Kuo needed a title that would sell tickets.) That’s a problem because there’s a new rickshaw company in town and Dong Yong Rickshaw Company’s drivers are literally the worst people in the world, who spit watermelon seeds in the street, hassle kids who sell hardboiled eggs (“Mister, you can’t take my eggs.” “Go to Hell!”), and don’t wait for their designated turn when it comes to customers. Finally, Ah Feng’s had enough and he takes one of the Dong Yong goons apart, hard. Everyone’s so excited they get him boozed up for free, but on the way home, Ah Feng and Co. get ambushed. Even then, they win, but his blind wife blames the victim when he shows up bloody and bruised, “What did you do to provoke them?” she whines.
She changes her tune when Dong Yong dum-dums show up to kidnap her at the half hour mark and Ah Feng settles their hash so hard the kid of the company’s boss dies, and now he’s determined to take revenge on Ah Feng. From there on, this rocket ship is set for the heart of the sun and along the way we get women bashing their own brains out on a wall, a kinky dungeon of whipping, arms-free kung fu, a hardboiled egg kid who gets so excited he forgets he doesn’t know how to swim, and an amazing end battle with a punishing finishing move. Turns out there’s no film genre that doesn’t get better when you add a little Kuo.