I felt the need to write a review in light of all these glowing reviews that claim it is excellent or the best and all that nonsense. I have no idea what these people watched but this movie is mediocre and boring. It's not even a kung-fu movie! Like I understand the 1 guy who'd only seen 90's Jackie Chan action crap, but, that doesn't account for all the other 7-10 star ratings.
If this hadn't been a Cheng Cheh movie, I would have turned it off halfway through.
It tries to be a movie of compelling intrigue - with a little kung-fu thrown in. It fails horribly. It's as if they had a story outline that was solid for a kung-fu movie and then the writer wrote a first draft from that and they filmed the first draft without considering revision. It kind of can't get out of its own way trying to set up all the super-weak angles to the plot to make them align so there can be the final conflict. It felt like the movie was pacing back and forth twiddling its thumbs waiting to get on with it.
I caught myself looking at the timestamp at 1hr 5mins in and was like "omg I still have 35 minutes?!" It got slightly better in the last 35 but at that point I was just like "get to it" and when they got to it it was a let down.
I don't need face-paced or full of action, I don't need a good story. What I do need for a kung-fu movie like this is for it to be well-directed which means 1.) good kung-fu and 2.) keep me interested - it failed on both fronts.
It wasn't BAD, but there was barely anything good to it. Boring and mediocre and not worth the time. If you're a Cheh completionist, it's not going to hurt you, but don't seek this movie out thinking it's even close to a good kung-fu movie, much less a great one.
If this hadn't been a Cheng Cheh movie, I would have turned it off halfway through.
It tries to be a movie of compelling intrigue - with a little kung-fu thrown in. It fails horribly. It's as if they had a story outline that was solid for a kung-fu movie and then the writer wrote a first draft from that and they filmed the first draft without considering revision. It kind of can't get out of its own way trying to set up all the super-weak angles to the plot to make them align so there can be the final conflict. It felt like the movie was pacing back and forth twiddling its thumbs waiting to get on with it.
I caught myself looking at the timestamp at 1hr 5mins in and was like "omg I still have 35 minutes?!" It got slightly better in the last 35 but at that point I was just like "get to it" and when they got to it it was a let down.
I don't need face-paced or full of action, I don't need a good story. What I do need for a kung-fu movie like this is for it to be well-directed which means 1.) good kung-fu and 2.) keep me interested - it failed on both fronts.
It wasn't BAD, but there was barely anything good to it. Boring and mediocre and not worth the time. If you're a Cheh completionist, it's not going to hurt you, but don't seek this movie out thinking it's even close to a good kung-fu movie, much less a great one.