Fong Sai-yuk | The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk (1993) Review

“Fong Sai-yuk” DVD Cover

Director: Corey Yuen 
Cast: Jet Li, Josephine Siao, Michelle Reis, Sibelle Hu, Peter Chan Lung, Paul Chu Kong 
Running Time: 100 min. 

By Numskull

Ah, the days when duels to the death (or at least to the severe bruising) were fought in public at the drop of a hat and ripe, buxom young women were offered as prizes to the most skilled combatants. Fling all the synonyms for “barbaric” you want, but at least they made for some cool martial arts movies.

Corey Yuen Kwai ventures into the love-it-or-hate-it realm of wire fu without penetrating too deep; the characters in this movie don’t BREAK the laws of physics, they just bend them…well, okay, they make pretzels out of them, actually, but they don’t have any other ridiculous super powers, so it’s fine with me.

After a surprisingly gory scene where a guy gets his forearm snapped right off and another one’s face gets torn off of his skull (brings new meaning to the Chinese term “giving face”, does it not?), we are introduced to the roguish Fong Sai Yuk…definitely one of Jet Li’s more likable heroes…and his future sweetie Ting Ting (Michelle Reis). Fong is something of a mama’s boy, but that’s okay, because his mom (Josephine Siao) is something of a rogue herself (think Anita Mui from Drunken Master 2) and loves a good fight as much as her son does. And good fights there are; few in number but big on fun. Early on, Fong and Ting Ting’s mother duke it out while keeping their feet off the ground at all times, using a structure dedicated to the competition and the heads of spectators for support. This is followed by a (believe it or not) less plausible scene in which Fong’s mom poses as his brother. Always with the cross-dressing in these movies…cripes…

The first serious (as in, hostile) fight scene of note takes place about an hour into the film, but it’s not some unbearably silly clown fu flick in the Fearless Hyena vein, and the in-between parts are at least watchable, even when they’re not that funny. The climax is a good one, with Fong shooting a whole bunch of arrows at a whole bunch of guys. His aim for multiple targets all at once is, of course, impeccable.

Dimension has released this film in typically banal Dimension fashion as “The Legend”. The Universe DVD is the only way to go; it has a good transfer and above average HK subtitles (and, if you like to keep an eye out for double meanings resulting from translingual imperfections, the line “The meat you love is coming!” is priceless).

Numskull’s Rating: 7/10