“The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Lee Tso Nam
Writer: Cheung San Yee
Cast: Tan Tao Liang, Don Wong Tao, Philip Ko Fei, Jimmy Lee Fong, Suen Ga Lam, George Wang Jue, Lau Yin Seung, Tommy Lee, Chai Kai, Sit Hon, Man Chung San, Sit Cheung Man, Tan Tao Kung, To Wai Wo
Running Time: 89 min.
By Numskull
Straight from the Tai Seng DVD package:
“Flashy leg combats highlight this superb action adventure, considered to be one of the best made films in leg fighting! To determine which one of them possesses the best leg fighting technique, three kung fu experts embark on a series of competitions to see who’s the ultimate kung fu master. THE HOT, THE COOL, AND THE VICIOUS is oriental combat at its finest!”
Whoever wrote that should be fired.
The Hot, the Cool and the Vicious (with or without a second comma) is REALLY about a struggle between Bai Yu Ching (Don Wong), a notorious wandering killer in the employ of a small town’s crooked mayor, and Lu Tung Chun (Tan Tao-Liang), the security chief of that same town, who is hunting down the mayor’s son because he killed his soon-to-be mother-in-law (in a western society, he’d more likely thank him for his trouble). The mayor of this town is a real asshole who runs a counterfeiting operation with a guy named Mr. Lung (Tommy Lee, who also choreographed the fights). Mr. Lung looks like an extremely primitive attempt by a blind makeup artist to pass a Chinese man off as a Caucasian. Three notable female characters who complicate the matter are Lu Tung Chun’s fiancee, a shady innkeeper, and some woman who craves revenge on Lu Tung Chun for a perceived past injustice and enlists Bai Yu Chung’s aid.
With this ambitious setup, there’s considerable potential here. But with these restrained fight scenes and that even-worse-than-usual English dubbing, the film is only moderately enjoyable. In combat, Bai Yu Chung relies almost exclusively on his hands while Lu Tung Chun mostly uses an impressive array of kicks; this isn’t turned into a lame gimmick but, at the same time, I think the fights could have been a little bit better off if the choreography had made a little bit more of a point of illustrating each man’s specialty.
As you have no doubt deduced by now, I have very little to say about this film. It is by no means a bad kung fu movie, but there’s no shortage of better ones out there.
Numskull’s Rating: 6/10
