1979 ‘林世榮’ Directed by Yuen Woo-ping
A plump butcher student of 'Wong Fei Hung', Lam Sai-Wing (Sammo) gets into trouble with a rival kung-fu school known as 'Five Dragons'. He is accused of raping the Head of that school's goddaughter and killing his son. Now Ko, the Head of Five Dragons, wants revenge.
Lam Sai Wing, Lin Shi Rong
A calligraphy fight, a fight that marries the violent slapstick of The Three Stooges with choreography worthy of Gene Kelly, a battle that showcases outlandish styles such as "monkey pole," "weird cat," and "cosmic palm"... Just ridiculously entertaining. There's a running gag of Sammo Hung's character making terrible mistakes because he's too impatient to hear a whole story before taking action. The pitch black punchline occurs when the head of a rival school ends up trying to kill him in a similar misunderstanding. It's really kind of tragic, because the villain's motivations are just (from his erroneous point of view, anyway). Sammo catches his butt on fire in that scene too, though, so I guess it's not *that* tragic.
Starts off as Drunken Master-lite but with Sammo Hung (who rules in this) instead of Jackie Chan, only to eventually take a darker tonal shift that elevates it exponentially. Yuen Woo-ping goes insanely hard with the fight sequences per usual. Third act rips.
I think all the fighting in this movie wouldn't have taken place if the characters just took a moment and had a propper conversation like what people normally do in a civilized society.
Anyway, Yuen Woo Ping delivers a Hilarious and action packed Kung Fu / Comedy starring Sammo Hung as one of Wong Fei Hong's disciples who keeps getting involved in fights because he's too impatient to understand the whole story and usually ends up either beating the crap out of the wrong guy or/and cause his school, master, friends and family to be in danger of some very notorious Kung Fu master and his gang.
The Yuen Woo Ping choreographed fights are a beauty to behold, what this…
5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films - Round V: Film #23
I'm not quite sure if this is a comedy that gets surprisingly dark, or a revenge story with fart jokes. Either way, Sammo fights some kind of crazy cat person, and that's a great addition to a film of any genre.
The Fei-Hung calligraphy duel and the final showdown tend to be the fights most often brought up when The Magnificent Butcher is mentioned. But the mid-film clashes of Yuen Biao versus Lam Ching-Ying and Wei Pai versus Yuen Mo are so spectacular that the quartet’s centerpiece nearly steal the entire film from Sammo.
There’s something special about choreography so exhaustingly dense that you might miss an amazing move if you blink. Nearly every fight in Magnificent Butcher astounds with the sheer volume of maneuvers and scenarios and action-reaction across a single fight, the odd styles and unique props, the physical comedy weaved into the fabric of each duel.
If Prodigal Son and Pedicab Driver represent Sammo at his peak of…
On the surface, it might seem like The Magnificent Butcher was an attempt by Golden Harvest and director Yuen Woo-ping to repeat the success of his Drunken Master by placing Sammo Hung into a similar kung fu comedy but even if this is not as well-remembered, I think I might have enjoyed this more than Jackie Chan's breakout hit. This is as classical a martial arts comedy as possible, combining a very convoluted plot and slapstick humour with endless action scenes and training sequences to create an action comedy designed to entertain you and in this regard, it wholly worked for me. Most of the comedy is very funny (not always the case with these types of movies) and Sammo…
Yuen Woo-ping marrying the action/comedy formula that worked in his 1978 Jackie Chan vehicles with Sammo Hung's personality. More brutal and taken by radical shidts of mood. As expected in Sammo/Yuen partnership the action is terrific throughout.
Although Sammo Hung's immortality in the pantheon of kung-fu movie legends is pretty much undisputed, I think it's a shame that he isn't more of a household name. He deserves to be at least as well known as Jackie Chan, although I guess the Chan most people know is the guy from Rush Hour and the Lego movies, more than the legend of Hong Kong cinema of the 70's and 80's (and beyond). As Hung never made that same step into Hollywood mainstream, I suppose it stands to reason.
But he's just so fucking amazing. And let's move beyond that initial summation of his appeal as being that wonder that such a chubby dude can move the way he does…
Wenn sich zwei der besten Action-Regisseure Hong Kongs zusammen tun, um das Kung-Fu-Genre Ende der 70er Jahre zu revolutionieren, dann kann man wohl Kampfszenen der Extraklasse erwarten. Und die bekommt man hier auch! Mit technischem Ideenreichtum, Non-Stop-Action und einem All-Star-Cast, wurden neue Maßstäbe gesetzt. Die Rede ist übrigens von Sammo Hung und Yuen Woo Ping. Letzterer ist ja heute als Inbegriff des Action-Regisseurs bekannt, und das bis weit über die Grenzen Hong Kongs hinaus. Hier reiht sich ein außerordentlicher Fight an den anderen. Yuen Biao, Lam Ching Ying, Kwan Tak und viele mehr zeigen was sie können, und das in reiner Perfektion. Auch wenn als unbestrittener Klassiker des Genres anerkannt, hat "The Magnificent Butcher" leider nie den Weg zu einem…
One star deduction for animal cruelty, and another one off for going every which way but towards a satisfying conclusion. The best fight is the one early on between the two sifu cause it's novel, but the more serious, motive-driven ones suffer because the narrative is kinda messy. I feel like a lot of my qualms could've been solved by not tacking on the drunk guy to a movie that had enough characters as is. Still, Chung Fat plays a guy called Weird Cat and there's no way I can hate a movie that has that.
This is a solid Sammo Hung Kung Fu film but every time I watch this, I think of what could have been if the unexpected death of Yuen Siu Tien hadn't happened.
This was supposed to be Sammo's take of Wong Fei-hung with Sammo playing "Butcher" Lam Sai-wing, a student of Wong Fei-hung and Yuen Siu Tien reprising his "Beggar So" character similar to what he did with Jackie Chan years earlier with his son, Yuen Woo-ping set to direct. However, Yuen Siu Tien died of a heart attack during filming and Yuen Woo-ping, replaced him with Fan Mei Sheng. No offense to Fan Mei Sheng, but he was no substitute for Yuen Siu Tien and his absence is noticeable.…
1 star for the Yuen Biao fight and 1 star for the Sammo Hung end fight.
The first hour is way too silly to be much fun and then there is that tonal shift, I'm sorry but I really don't want an attempted rape scene and murder of a defenseless woman as a plot device in my kung-fu comedies.
That completely put me off this movie. Which is a shame because there are some great choreographed fight scenes.
Glad Sammo later made the wonderful Pedicab Driver to redeem this.
