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This is a very tough one.
In the early 80s, I went to see a HK fu actioner at a film society session at Adelaide University. This was before I became a hardened fan. There was a talk before and after. The speaker gave a strong endorsement to the then-only HK video rental place in Adelaide. I believe they obtained the movie from or with their help.
I'm fairly sure it was projected as a movie, not a video.
The plot is one that I have never seen in any other movie.
A young fu fighter (90% sure he was played by Chen Kuan Tai) joins a large gang. The gang leader is a tall old man with a long face who walks with an exaggerated limp. My clearest memory of this film is near the beginning, when the leader paces across the frame, to and fro, and limps. At each step, he goes up and down by more than a foot i.e. he has a rollercoaster walk. While walking, he lectures the young fighter on exactly what he is expected to do, namely, to destroy a large rival gang. To emphasize the point, the leader implores the young fighter to "tear them out by the roots". He repeats this phrase again at about 2/3 of the way through, when he is captured (and possibly taken to be locked up).
The fight scenes are on a large scale, and struck me as being particularly gory and brutal. I'm fairly sure the film was projected in widescreen.
The young fighter is highly successful, and pretty much all the rival gang are dead. The young fighter then has a special hat placed on his head, indicating that he has been promoted.
After the movie, the speaker opined that this was a sledgehammer message about HK's fears of the Chinese takeover in 1997, that the young fighter represented young people who will take China's money, wipe out the colony and therefore find promotion and favour under the incoming regime.
I have tried very hard to trace this movie and hit dead ends for 20+ years. I'll be damned if I can remember the precise year I saw it, as I went to a lot of such screenings during and after university.
I've obsessively trawled Chen Kuan Tai's filmography, but nothing sounds or seems anything like this one. I am prepared to state categorically that this film must have had a cinema release, due to the lavish scale of production.
Any ideas ?
In the early 80s, I went to see a HK fu actioner at a film society session at Adelaide University. This was before I became a hardened fan. There was a talk before and after. The speaker gave a strong endorsement to the then-only HK video rental place in Adelaide. I believe they obtained the movie from or with their help.
I'm fairly sure it was projected as a movie, not a video.
The plot is one that I have never seen in any other movie.
A young fu fighter (90% sure he was played by Chen Kuan Tai) joins a large gang. The gang leader is a tall old man with a long face who walks with an exaggerated limp. My clearest memory of this film is near the beginning, when the leader paces across the frame, to and fro, and limps. At each step, he goes up and down by more than a foot i.e. he has a rollercoaster walk. While walking, he lectures the young fighter on exactly what he is expected to do, namely, to destroy a large rival gang. To emphasize the point, the leader implores the young fighter to "tear them out by the roots". He repeats this phrase again at about 2/3 of the way through, when he is captured (and possibly taken to be locked up).
The fight scenes are on a large scale, and struck me as being particularly gory and brutal. I'm fairly sure the film was projected in widescreen.
The young fighter is highly successful, and pretty much all the rival gang are dead. The young fighter then has a special hat placed on his head, indicating that he has been promoted.
After the movie, the speaker opined that this was a sledgehammer message about HK's fears of the Chinese takeover in 1997, that the young fighter represented young people who will take China's money, wipe out the colony and therefore find promotion and favour under the incoming regime.
I have tried very hard to trace this movie and hit dead ends for 20+ years. I'll be damned if I can remember the precise year I saw it, as I went to a lot of such screenings during and after university.
I've obsessively trawled Chen Kuan Tai's filmography, but nothing sounds or seems anything like this one. I am prepared to state categorically that this film must have had a cinema release, due to the lavish scale of production.
Any ideas ?
