Featured Movies
Partners
Kung Fu: The Movie'Kung Fu' was one of the biggest TV programmes of the 1970s on both sides of the Atlantic and has continuing cult status, thanks in part to the appearance of its star David Carradine in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Those wishing to find out what the appeal is should avoid this film, however. So too should anyone still nurturing fond childhood memories of the series, unless they want their illusions cruelly shattered.
Made 11 years after the TV series ended, the film follows the same basic formula. Kwai Chang Caine, a half-American, half-Chinese Shaolin monk wanders around frontier town America righting wrongs after being exiled from his homeland for killing the prince who murdered his own guru, the blind Master Po.
The new twist is that Caine's past finally catches up with him when an evil Manchu (Mako) turns up to avenge the killing of his son, the prince that Caine killed all those years ago. He has very long fingernails, an evil laugh and a nasty surprise for Caine, in the form of Chung Wang (Lee) - a son that Caine unknowingly fathered and who has been placed under "a dark curse" by the naughty Manchu so that he is intent on destroying his Dad.
The other major difference is that this film is plain dull. Serious martial arts fans always used to criticise the TV series because of its lack of top quality fighting (Carradine was initially chosen for the role for his skill at dancing rather than fighting), but it generally had a few exciting moments. Kung Fu: The Movie has next to none, apart from a few half-hearted engagements with Brandon Lee. Instead there's reams of wooden dialogue relating to an opium smuggling subplot that is unbelievable even by the standards of the genre, a few lamentable special effects (especially at the climax, which initially promises much but turns out to be the ultimate damp squib), and shocking acting from everyone apart from Carradine and Lee.
Lee at least looks good in the role, while Carradine brings enough gravitas to make lines like, "I know a thousand ways to take a life, but not one to give it" sound profound and lines like, "he was found in the place of the poppy" sound only mildly ridiculous. Sadly, the aging actor is upstaged by his thinning barnet. His half-bald haircut really is so bad that it's hard to concentrate on anything he says when he isn't wearing his famous hat and all credibility he might have brought to this wafer-thin role is (as his greying strands should have been) shorn away. Good job he had that fixed by the time he appeared in Kill Bill.
|
