Being a fan of Asian cinema (with a great love for Hong Kong cinema) and being a long-time fan of Chow Yun Fat, it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch "The Postman Fights Back". And I must say that this is a fairly mediocre movie, unfortunately.
It was nice to see a very young Chow Yun Fat here, and I actually think this is some of his earliest work that I have seen, at least that I can remember.
The story told in "The Postman Fights Back" is about Ma (played by Ka-Yan Leung) who is a postman back in the the early days of the Chinese Republic. He is hired to bring some mysterious parcels to someone, and joins up with a couple of traveling companions. The group undergoes a long travel to deliver the parcels, and are waylaid by marauders, villains and bad weather along the way. Everyone is not whom they claim to be. So who can Ma trust and what is in the parcels that he was given strict orders not to open? The plot in the movie was fairly simple and straight forward, bordering on being too plain and mundane, you might say almost boring actually. The dialogue, well it was staggering at times, but otherwise fairly ordinary stuff here from such an old Chinese movie.
As for the acting in "The Postman Fights Back", then people actually did good jobs with their roles, despite having a mediocre script to work with. There were some good performances being put on here and there. However, as for the martial arts, well... Some of the fighting scenes were an eyesore and straining to behold, while others were nicely executed and choreographed. Now, mind you, don't expect to see martial arts that you see in Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, etc. movies, because that ain't happening. And prepare yourself for some rather overly-painted sound effects for the fight scenes. I couldn't help but smiling at times because of the sound effects used.
"The Postman Fights Back" actually did have some nice scenes and some good cinematography every now and then, and that was one of the better things in the movie.
And without saying too much, then prepare yourself for a royal eye-candy treat when you see the two (black and white) ninja outfits that the main villain donned towards the end. They were off the charts, I was laughing so hard at that. Notice, in one of the close-up scenes, that the black, form-fitting shirt he wears looks to be a knitted shirt. Got to love stuff like that.
For a Hong Kong movie, "The Postman Fights Back" was fairly average as to be expected from a 1982 movie. But if you like Asian cinema, and don't mind older movies, and/or is a fan of Chow Yun Fat, then "The Postman Fights Back" is worth watching if you haven't already seen it, just to check it off the 'to-watch list'.
