Skyhawk, The (1974) Review

“Skyhawk” DVD Cover

Director: Jeong Chang Hwa
Cast: Kwan Tak Hing, Carter Wong, Wang In Sik, Sammo Hung, Nora Miao, Chiu Hung, Lily Chen Ching, Lee Kwan, Gam Kei Chu, Shut-Ma Wa Lung, Kim Ki-ju
Running Time: 88 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The Skyhawk is the kind of movie which opens up with kung fu legends Kwan Tak-Hing, Sammo Hung, and Carter Wong strolling down a countryside path together, an image which close to 50 years later is one which indelibly captures a moment in time which can never be re-created. It’s not long before we witness the equally iconic Korean hapkido master Whang In-shik unleash a flurry of devastating kicks, and all of this is crammed into the initial minutes before the opening credits have even appeared onscreen.

As the 2nd production that Korean director Cheng Chang-ho would helm for Golden Harvest, having come off a hot streak with Shaw Brothers that saw him in the directors chair for classics like Six Assassins and the landmark King Boxer, The Skyhawk bears all the distinctive marks of a mid-70’s GH kung fu flick. This era of the studios output had plenty of recognisable traits – from sounds effects for punches and kicks (and falls for that matter!) that sound like someone knocking on a wooden box, to the focus on Korean martial arts like hapkido and taekwondo that was kicked off (no pun intended) with 1972’s Hapkido. 

Chang-ho would maintain a much closer Korean connection for the productions he worked on for Golden Harvest compared to his work at Shaw Brothers, with his first 3 titles (the 1973 thriller The Devil’s Treasure, The Skyhawk, and 1975 oddity The Association) being co-productions with Korean studios. Whang In-shik would be a regular in almost all of his GH work, and for The Association and The Double Crossers he would cast Koreans as the lead. In The Skyhawk In-shik is on villain duty, playing a character that feels very much like a prototype for the villainous role he’d play in The Young Master 6 years later.

The real selling point of The Skyhawk is the return of Kwan Tak-Hing as the titular character Wong Fei-Hung (or Wong Skyhawk as he’s frequently referred to, which I assume to be a direct translation). Tak-Hing first played Wong Fei-Hung in 1949’s The Strong of Wong Fei-Hung – Part 1, and would go onto play the character over 70 times. Rarely a year would go by without Tak-Hing appearing in another instalment of WFH adventures (in 1956 alone he’d star in 25 WFH movies!), until in 1961 it looked like he was going to hang up his no shadow boots with How Wong Fei-Hung Smashed the Five Tigers. It didn’t last though, and 6 years later he returned to the role with a vengeance, kicking off with 1967’s Wong Fei-Hung Against the Ruffians. After cranking out 11 more WFH adventures in just 4 years, at the age of 65 retirement finally seemed on the card for Tak-Hing with 1970’s Wong Fei-Hung: Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation.

Like a Frank Sinatra farewell tour though, 4 years later and now almost 70, he’d return for The Skyhawk. What’s perhaps most interesting is that it didn’t turn out to be a one-off return, and he’d go onto reprise the character in 1979’s The Magnificent Butcher, 1980’s The Magnificent Kick, and 1981’s Dreadnaught. Compared to his final trilogy of appearances though, in which he plays a more authoritative figure suited to his age, The Skyhawk can be considered to be the last movie in which he was still front and centre when it came to the action. Here we meet WFH on holiday in Thailand who’s visiting an old friend that runs a factory. A Thailand setting. A factory. Golden Harvest. The Mid-70’s. Yes, you guessed it, The Skyhawk could just as well be called Wong Fei Hung channels The Big Boss.

Naturally there’s shenanigans going on in the factory, with the villainous Chao Hsiung (The Iron Fisted Monk, Broken Oath) looking to lure the workers for his own nefarious schemes involving opium. He hires Whang In-shik and his lackeys to put on the pressure, but little did he count on Hak-Ting and his faithful disciple Sammo Hung being around. Oh, and of course Carter Wong. When we meet Wong in the beginning he’s looking to escape from In-shik, and when they finally catch up In-shik menacingly asks him “Why did you run away?”. It’s a question we never get an answer to as the audience, which would have helped to establish Wong’s character a little more, but either way after a beating from the hapkido master he ends up being taken in by Hak-Ting and his friend.

This turns out to not be such a bad deal for Wong, as Nora Miao also lives under the same roof, in what amounts to little more than a flower vase role. Apart from flirtatiously making eye contact with the recovering mystery man over the dinner table, and turning up in relevant scenes to show expressions of concern (oh, and at one point giving Tak-Hing a massage, lucky guy!), Miao is left with little to do other than be present. Still, her presence further adds to the feel of The Skyhawk being another attempt to recreate the success of Bruce Lee rather than a revival of the long-running Wong Fei-Hung series. The grindhouse vibe is present and accounted for with typical mid-70’s Golden Harvest grittiness, like a James Bond-esque sequence where a factory worker is tied to a tree trunk, and placed on the conveyor belt heading towards a whirring saw that threatens to slice them in half.

Like many Golden Harvest productions made in that wilderness period between Bruce Lee’s passing, and Sammo Hung and co. taking fight choreography to the next level towards the end of the 70’s, The Skyhawk ultimately feels like a rather middling affair. Kwan Tak-Hing was in the twilight of his career, while the likes of Sammo Hung had still yet to reach his full potential in terms of both choreography style and his onscreen persona. That’s not to say that the action is a write off, which Hung receives sole credit for, far from it, and it’s easy to feel that Whang In-shik probably also contributed some ideas as well. In-shik’s kicks here look deadly, and whenever he springs into action the fluidity of his movements belies the 1974 production, when the punch and block choreography style was still largely predominant. 

Hung himself shows some blink and you’ll miss it flashes of the type of speed we’d become accustomed to in the 80’s, particularly in a brief sparring match against Tak-Hing, offering up a glimpse of what was to come. There are several fights scattered throughout, many involving In-shik’s lackeys that include Korean kung fu flick luminary Kim Ki-ju (Golden Dragon, Silver Snake, Dragon, the Young Master), however there are no real standouts. The fact that one fight briefly pits Sammo Hung against Whang In-shik and falls into the same category almost feels like it should be a criminalised. The skirmish could still be considered a highlight though in the context of comparing it to the finale, which goes for a 1 on 1 double pitting a pole wielding Kwan Tak-Hing against In-shik, and Carter Wong squaring off against Chao Hsiung. 

The thought that an almost 70 year old Tak-Hing could defeat a guy like In-shik in his prime was always going to be a tough sell, and the editing tries to prime us for this by showing how powerful Tak-Hing is before he gets to the main event. Taking on a group on In-shik’s lackeys, his pole amusingly sends them flying through the air in exaggerated slow motion in a movie that up until this point hasn’t had any, but it’s still not enough to suspend disbelief. Even more jarring is that the temple ruins that the fight takes place in in Thailand were too hot for Tak-Hing, so instead they constructed an indoor set in Hong Kong that attempted to replicate the setting. The end result is Carter Wong and Chao Hsiung fighting in the actual temple in Thailand against a clear blue sky, juxtaposed with constant cutaways to Tak-Hing and In-shik fighting in what’s clearly an indoor set, but we’re supposed to believe everyone is in the same place.

Despite being a comeback vehicle for one of Hong Kong cinema’s most enduring characters and the actor who played him, joining forces with some of the brightest talents of the era, The Skyhawk somehow fails to be an entertaining time at the movies. Perhaps because it feels like it’s trying to re-capture the look and feel that the producers probably thought made the likes of Bruce Lee’s Big Boss a success, not realising it was Lee’s presence that made that movie work rather than the pedestrian plot or exotic setting. As a result, much of it feels like going through the motions, and that spark which makes kung fu movies endlessly rewatchable regardless of their shortcomings is here sadly missing in action.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10