Tag: Sammo Hung

Envision Turbulence | The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) Review

January 29, 2026

A King Hu wuxia film is a precious thing, there being so few. I’d taken a circular route from the canonical works at the start of his career – Come Drink with Me, Dragon Inn, A Touch of Zen – straight to the Mountain duology of 1979, skipping over The Fate of Lee Khan and The Valiant Ones. Either way, I’m running out, though I was mightily defeated by Legend of the Mountain and left it unfinished. And so, there was something bittersweet about finally sitting down and watching The Fate of Lee Khan, or “The Turbulence at Yingchun Pavilion,” here at the beginning of the year, when the kung fu mood usually strikes. And ironically or not, the film is a pastiche, taking little bits from across the catalogue. It’s the tavern setting of Dragon Inn, the caper premise of Raining in the Mountain, and the cast of A Touch of Zen. Here, Hsu Feng plays a villainous Mongolian princess, sister to the titular antagonist, while the villain of A Touch of Zen, Han Ying-chieh, is a resistance member disguised as a drunk, and Roy Chiao, the Buddhist monk, is undercover as the henchman at Lee Khan’s right hand. By the way, is it technically yellowface for these Chinese actors to play Mongolians? You’re not fooling me, man, no matter how much additional facial hair. … More Envision Turbulence | The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) Review

Old Myths, Old Men | Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) Review

February 20, 2025

There’s a Wikipedia page for the topic “epic film,” which gets into some of the back-and-forth in film scholarship about whether the term applies exclusively to historical-style movies or to those in other genres as well. If the latter, then 2001 is (as designed) a “sci-fi epic,” and The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy epic, though that’s somewhat obvious. What about the less obvious genres, like comedy? I can only think of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. And then there’s action, which might be even trickier. This is our punchy genre, often driven by a single hero rather than an ensemble, and inside a contained scenario instead of sprawled out across time and space. I’d actually make the argument for The Night Comes for Us, for its multiple perspectives, its backstory, and the scale of the fights. Consider, too, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, running at a touch over two hours and setting its action inside the real-world megastructure Kowloon Walled City. … More Old Myths, Old Men | Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) Review

Kicks to the Face Before Breakfast | Lady Whirlwind (1972) Review

July 19, 2023

Since we’re all in the “video game adaptation” mood lately, I might suggest a challenge: a faithful film version of an RPG, say, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The hero has a task, and then they spend the entire movie on side quests. This was my thinking during Lady Whirlwind, one of the early star vehicles for Angela Mao. Having costarred with him in Enter the Dragon, she’s sometimes considered “the female Bruce Lee,” but I was skeptical, even watching her early scenes here. The character she’s playing is cool and confident, but her facial expressions tell a different story in the midst of fighting. Does “female Bruce Lee” simply mean “female martial arts star”? And does a woman score the title just by being good, suggesting that we don’t expect greatness? It takes me a moment to realize that she’s taking on a dozen guys at a time, and most critically, that like a lot of Bruce Lee characters, she’s kind of a dick. She is certainly not the hero, and in fact, wants the hero dead. Thank God she spends the entire movie on side quests. … More Kicks to the Face Before Breakfast | Lady Whirlwind (1972) Review