“Ten Tigers from Kwangtung” Poster
Director: Chang Cheh
Cast: Ti Lung, Fu Sheng, Philip Kwok, Wei Pei, Dick Wei, Sun Chien, Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, Lo Mang, Ku Feng, Chin Siu-ho, Wang Lung-wei
Running Time: 91 min.
By Ian Whittle
Not exactly well liked, and suffering from a troubled history (this is what happens when you let MPs visit the shoot!), I’ll be annoying, buck the trend, and say I quite like this all-star mish-mash from Shaw Brothers.
Jumping back and forth a generation, the film introduces us to the formation of the Ten Tigers of Kwantung (initially two rival factions of kung fu masters played off against each other by the Manchus), and years later, shows the Manchu’s taking a murderous revenge against the descendants of the Ten Tigers.
The flashback structure is not as confusing as I was fearing, though it may have been simpler to show all the “older footage” first, then go forward to the later scenes, rather than jump back and forth. From what I can gather, the possible reason for this odd approach was due to the original film being abandoned following one of Fu Sheng’s recurrent on-set accidents.
The swamped cast results in many of the stars being crudely sidelined, not least of all poor Dick Wei, who never seems to do ANYTHING in any of his Shaw films. Ti Lung, Fu Sheng and Ku Feng get the lions share of the “past” footage, but do not play very engaging characters. Stealing scenes right left and centre are Lu Feng as a gruff but also jovial fisherman, and a completely stark raving mad performance by Phillip Kwok as the Drunken Master, Beggar So Hat-yi. As usual, Wei Pei and Sun Chien are shoved to the sidelines in favour of the ‘Opera’ Venoms.
The latter footage gives Wang Li a chance to be a really sly villain, but none of the Baby Venoms come across pretty well, and they are not helped by some atrocious hairstyles – one of them has latter day Elvis style mutton chops.
Besides the usual fake sets (I’ve seen more convincing piers in a pond), and the usual rubbish score by Eddie H. Wang (as in; take a load of De Wolfe cues and slap them together with no sense of style or consistency), there is some especially cracking fight choreography on display here, including some blistering and varied weapons fights – plus a little bit of gore! When it comes to Peking Opera meets Grand Guignol, Chang Cheh is still the master!
Fun but not especially good, this film is ideal entertainment if somewhat lacking.
Ian Whittle’s Rating: 7/10
Although this movie contains all of the Shaw Actors I love, I find that this is the movie I tend to rewatch the least. More than likely, for everything mentioned in the above review.