Martial Arts Theater #3: The Hot, The Cool and the Vicious/He Has Nothing but Kung Fu

Two Great Films, but only one of them stars Gordon Liu 2005-07-29 Two fine, old-school king fu films. Note, however, only "He has Nothing but Kung Fu" stars Gordon Liu. What ploys distributers won't try to sell their items! (Also see my review of "Raiders of Buddhist Kung Fu.") "The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious" stars the great leg fighter, Tao-liang (Delon) Tan.

The former is about the son of a magistrate (Liu) who suffers from amnesia, and gets tangled up in the antics of a con-man (the guy who co-starred with Liu in "Dirty Ho"--a wonderful film!) and the injustices of a local crime ring. In the processs the amnesiatic and martial arts proficient Liu unwittingly becomes a Robin Hood-like character. As always, Gordon Liu delivers. This film lacks the "feel" of Liu's later Shaw Brothers productions, but it is still very worthwhile. ****

The latter is about an honest, upright "sheriff" (Tan) of a Chinese town, a mysterious, transient ex-convict, a brothel keeper, a local crime boss and his counterfeiting ring. This film has a great American Western flair to it, and is my favorite Delon Tan film; even his English-dubbed voice is very suitable to him. Great fights, winsome characters, heroics, subplots and funny--but apt--dubbing mark this classic. The blond-haired villian sounds like he's talking through a tin can, but strangely it all seems to fit well in this film. I actually like this film more than "He has Nothing but Kung Fu." *****

(**** + *****)/2 = 4.5 stars.

Top shelf for sure!

- Amazon