Xun cheng ma

No pun intended - before the Transporter we had others you had to deliver packages ... although in this case it is not people that are being transported. Well at least not in the boxes they have to carry, they would be far too small for that anyway.

Quite a good troop of people you get here. Although as I understand it, Chow Yun Fat was not the one we came to know and love in later years. No John Woo movies under his belt is what I mean. Apparently he was more of a romantic movie star back then. Funny I never saw him like that (no pun intended and King & I left aside of course).

The action is very well shot and the story is tight - well it is not much of a story, but more than enough to get you invested. It is about new technology being able to ... well get rid of a lot of people (again no pun intended). There still is time and the place to add a lot of action scenes. With a lot of violence and blood ... we wouldn't want it any other way ... right? Great soundtrack too btw ... felt like I had heard certain themes ... but it probably just means others have used stuff from this ...

Many of Hong Kong films have a backdrop of historical intrigue in the Qing Dynasty (circa 1644 to 1911). Golden Harvest's The Postman Strikes Back takes place a few years after this period in 1913 just after the establishment of the Republic of China with Yuan Shikai and the Northern Warlords fighting Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. The historical aspects behind this is quite fascinating (though only mentioned a little in this film) because Sun was originally elected the first Provincial president after the Qing Dynasty and then helped get Yuan elected as First President of the China Republic, was most likely coerced into doing this and later would rebel against this (Sun would go to Japan shortly after the failed coup and Yuan would die a few years later in 1916.) Back to the story: bandit Zhao Long holds the northern mountain pass named Laoma that is of great use to Yuan militarily and sends envoy Hu (Eddy Ko Hung) to persuade Zhao to side with Yuan.

Hu enlists the help of a courier named Ma (Leung Kar-Yan from Drunken Dragon) a stoic no-nonsense man whose own job is fraught with little money, unappreciative little bastards who do not appreciate the melted chocolate he has brought them and the fact that he knows his living is in jeopardy as transportation like the railroads become more commonplace. Even then he was reluctant to help Hu until his troublemaker friend Yao Jie (Yuen Yat-Choh) decided (or was it another reason …) to employee himself under Hu. Now there is a little confusion on why he eventually took this job. Ma was confronted earlier by his sister Guihwa (Cherie Chung Cho-Hung) who had told him that father sold her 15-year old sister to Shanghai and needed money to get her back. Unfortunately this plot angle did not go anywhere (several story lines are mentioned in the film without resolution or sometimes without even being alluded to again like this one and Ma's career demise).

For 300 taels of gold per person, four cases of an unknown matter need to be delivered to Zhao Long before his birthday of December 20th. If anything gets compromised they are ordered to blow up the contents and to not look at them. Hu hired Fu Jun to join the group -- a cigarette smoking, scarf wearing gambler (reminds me a little of Tatsuya Nakadai in Yojimbo) who has baggage of his own -- played by a skinny Chow Yun-Fat in an early movie role. Joining Ma are friend Bu (played by great character actor Fan Mei-Sheng) a man who is an expert with explosives, Ma's sister Guihwa, and Southern rebel Li Fu whom they save later in the trip and possibly has eyes for Fu Jun (another dissipated angle). They all band together to deliver the goods or perish trying. Several of them would choose the latter.

Several negative aspects hurt an otherwise interesting film. There are too many loose ends, disappearing characters and conflicting story lines with the narrative. This could have been because of the use of four writers including the director Ronny Yu for the script. There is also too much exposition that slows the middle of the story without any progressing of the story. Sometimes Leung Kar-Yan would be too wooden in his acting approach though sometimes his austere nature was appropriate. The only problem I had with the filming was with the night scenes because they are appear murky probably because they are filmed on location and at night.

However, I think there are enough positives to make this an enjoyable movie. The cinematography is excellent and the use of the camera was ingenious in many scenes of a very cold Korean landscape (of course if you notice this then maybe the adventure was stagnant). Ronny Yu's (Fearless, The Bride With White Hair, Freddy vs. Jason) direction is quite good and consistently chooses interesting shooting techniques with hand-held cameras in many exterior shots. Eddy Ko Hung's is excellent as the villain. Ideas were impressive from the ice-skating bandits to Fu Jun's wrist bow to exploding rats. The fight scenes are interesting if a bit short with Chow fighting two bandits at once with one standing on a platform attached to the back of his partner and an excellent finale with the unmasked ninja fighting the protagonist Ma. The penultimate action sequence with Fan Mei-Sheng is probably the best scene in the film with a Ramboesque and Wild Bunch feeling to it. Ultimately though, the cohesion of all the elements is lacking and a tighter script and faster pacing could have made this a splendorous film. Though the movie may not be sublime at least you get to see an exploding ninja and Chow Yun Fat in a non-starring role attempt Kung Fu with his aggressive scarf-style. You may also learn that a compass can save your life against underground enemies.

The DVD copy I have is the Fortune Star/Fox release. It has a good transfer and unlike the earlier releases from this label it does not have dubtitles. There are really no extras except trailers which is normal for the bare-bone releases of Fortune Star/Fox. Of an interesting note here is what Bey Logan of Dragon Dynasty has to say about this film and its Fox release: "I hope one day we can do Postman Strikes Back justice on a future DVD re-issue. … The Fox US edition, though technically decent, didn't have much in the way of extras." Of course, extras would be nice though I do not see Dragon Dynasty doing a better job of a transfer.

Kung fu wise, this movie doesn't offer a great deal. There is very little fighting in it, and the quality of it isn't great. Eddy Ko (the bad guy) is good (in terms of acting), and there are a couple of pretty girls, too, but ultimately the movie is quite dull. Chow Yun Fat has a couple of fight scenes, but his moves are unconvincing - one understands why he subsequently stuck mostly to gangster movies.

The main character, capable Ka-Yan Leung, hardly does any fighting, which is a great disappointment. The story has him as a traveling postman, who's delivering an important but fateful set of boxes to an evil lord. The result is tragic, and the "hero" doesn't do anything about it until he finally gets angry and takes out the bad guy. But the story is unsatisfying, doesn't have much entertainment value, and is generally rather dull.

5 out of 10.

The Postman Fights Back is an early film for director Ronny Yu, who would later direct the wuxia masterpiece The Bride With White Hair. This is mostly a starring vehicle for Ka Yan Leung best known as "Beardy") and if you seen a few old school kung fu flicks, you definitely will recognize him. This puts a postman, a thief, an explosive expert and a con man together to deliver a package that has people trying to kill them on the way. Chow Yun Fat and Cherie Chung give early appearances here and is cool to see Chow Yun Fat mixing it up with some old school chop sockey action. The Postman Fights Back is crazy, unpolished action that is a bridge between the old school Kung Fu flicks and the new wave of HK action cinema that was about to revolutionize the action movie market with the films of John Woo, Jackie Chan and others. Eddie Ko plays a similar ninja character that he played in Duel To The Death and has similar insane ninja action. The Postman Fights Back is not without it's flaws, but is definitely a worthy Hong Kong action flick that is good enough to please fans of the genre and is interesting enough to give it a shot.

The one line summary really sums this film up. The story was bland, characters boring, and fights only decent, but Postman Strikes Back had THE coolest ninja I've ever seen. He didn't use ninja magic or fly, but he had the biggest arsenal of ninja tricks ever. You've gotta see it just for that. Who doesn't love ninjas?