Avenging Boxer 小子命大

Casanova Wong plays a killer from some secret society whose symbol (a gold plate) was stolen long ago by two wandering martial arts masters. He tracks down and kills one of them (Lung Fei), and the man's son (Peter Cheng), who witnesses the fight, decides to learn kung fu in order to punish the culprit. To this end he arrives at his uncle's house (Chia Kai) and joins his travelling troupe of acrobats, learning martial arts from his uncle along the way, so that one fine day he can avenge his father.

Impressions: As you can see, the story is hardly distinguished by refinement. Absolutely nothing new, and even what's there is told in a muddled way. As always, in order to stretch the action to an hour and a half, some insignificant subplots are introduced, appearing out of nowhere and vanishing just as quickly into nowhere. Casanova Wong spends the entire film circling around this very Peter Cheng, unaware that he is the one holding the record-symbol he's so desperately searching for, while Cheng, for his part, doesn't even try to dissuade him, all the while training in martial arts under no fewer than three masters.

But, as you've already correctly guessed, I'm now going to say: "But that's not the point!". And indeed, it isn't the point, because it's more interesting to take a look at the fights, which are staged at the highest level. There aren't particularly many of them, but those that are there rely very heavily on acrobatics, so there's definitely something worth watching. As always, Casanova Wong is very good in the "villain" role, and in the final showdown, where Peter Cheng takes him out along with his own cousin, his defeat seems very contrived. Otherwise, the film offers absolutely nothing special — monotonous music, average acting, even more average (though high in density) silly jokes — we've seen all this more than once or twice. What we definitely haven't seen before are the training scenes presented here. I was very surprised by their variety and intricacy — I'd never encountered anything like it before. Laying bricks while suspended in the air (hmm... you have to see it to picture it) and all sorts of acrobatic stunts at the top of a tree (very much like modern gym equipment, but several orders of magnitude more dangerous) look very lively and definitely make this film an undeniable classic for fans of precisely the fight scenes in this kind of cinema.