Shi xiong shi di qi chu ma

Basically a bunch of oddballs are recruited by a Kung Fu master named Master Sher(John Liu) to be trained for a truly deadly, dangerous and somewhat suicidal rescue mission. "Don't push them so hard Master..they'll come to hate you."

"I don't want them to die..that's all." At first these guys are laughably inept and downright embarrassing to their master but after one particular embarrassing defeat at the local brothel they come to realize the value of the knowledge the master possesses and finally become serious about becoming trained fighters and show considerable improvement in attitude as well as skill as the time approaches to undertake the mission. The ending to this otherwise fun film is unfortunately rather dark and takes away from the enjoyment although there are two very entertaining if somewhat lengthy kung fu battles as a result of this.

I received a copy of this movie for Christmas, and I must say that it was pretty funny. Especially the dub job. It seems there was one guy providing all the voices (including the women's voices!) One exchange that was particularly hilarious was the two guards talking about going to the "house of ill repute", with the one guard saying "Well, don't let me down!" I was curious if there was any info available on the work of the other actors besides John Liu. I know that I saw the actor who portrayed "Shorty" in an earlier Jackie Chan movie whose name escapes me as I type this. In any event, this is an entertaining movie that reminds me of the old kungfu flicks that used to come on every Saturday afternoon. Just a little piece of nostalgia.

KUNG FU COMMANDOS (1982), better known as THE INCREDIBLE KUNG FU MISSION, takes the standard DIRTY DOZEN-type commando mission and transposes it to the Hong Kong kung fu genre. It's not the best example of this particular hybrid (see Sammo Hung's EASTERN CONDORS, 1987), but it's got plenty of fighting, a fairly straightforward plot and two of the top long-limbed stars of the later kung fu era, John Liu and Alexander Lou (aka Alexander Lo Rei).

John Liu plays a kung fu expert hired by a gambling boss to train five vagrants with a modicum of fighting skill for the job of rescuing a gang boss imprisoned in the fort of a powerful warlord (Robert Tai). The training scenes follow the model of THE DIRTY DOZEN and include dollops of humor as the five trainees continually disappoint Liu. At one point he takes them to a brothel as a reward for completing the first stage of their training only to see them get into a fight with a rich patron and his gang and lose. Later, after more training, they go back and fight again, with different results.

As kung fu fighters so often do in these movies, our heroes head off on their mission with no supplies or provisions but manage to turn up some rope when they need to scale a cliff to get into the fort. They proceed to climb down into the fort in broad daylight in full view of some less-than-vigilant guards.

Liu and Lou, of course, have the best fights, especially when they take on the blond-wigged warlord played by the film's fight director, Robert Tai (aka Tai Che). Tai and Lou collaborated on several high-powered, action-packed kung fu films, most notably SHAOLIN CHASTITY KUNG FU, NINJA FINAL DUEL and NINJA VS. SHAOLIN GUARD.

While there is humor throughout, thanks to one of the team being a perennial coward, the comic tone is hammered in by the constant repetition of a single melody taken from "Ol' Turkey Buzzard," a song composed by Quincy Jones for the score of the 1969 Hollywood western MACKENNA'S GOLD. It's reorchestrated for this film with Ennio Morricone-style arrangements, giving the film a comic Italian western feel seriously at odds with the more dramatic scenes. The tape/DVD edition currently available in the U.S. offers a good letter-boxed transfer of a widescreen print.

Loved this film. All the characters were unique and special in their own way. The comedy was pretty good. One scene was very touching and made me cry (you'll know when you see it). The martial Arts scenes were very beautiful, artistic....the choreography was like watching ballet...the action scenes were creative and brutal. And the star, John Liu, is one of the best kickers in martial arts cinematic history. I highly recommend this film to all you old school kung fu film fans.

Years ago I kept seeing the VHS box cover for this at the local video store. My buddies and I looked at it, saw the title, and laughed hilariously at what had to be the biggest piece of Kung Fu b-movie schlock ever transferred from celluloid to video-tape.

Needless to say we rented it. And, it turned out to be a pretty decent movie ... in a kung-fu sort of way. The would be heroes shirk their training, but learn the hard way that there is no easy way to success.

We see them regain new strength and resolve, and eventually launch forth to succeed in their mission.

Me, I don't know what I was expecting when I rented it 30 years ago. I figured it had some stupid plot about two rival schools fighting, horrible dubbing, and maybe even some high wire acrobatics. Not quite the case.

Don't get me wrong. It's still Taiwanese B-movie fare, but there's a little more heart here than what one might've expected from that era of kung fu films.

Enjoy with some popcorn.