From Golden Harvest studios and infamous director Lo Wei, comes an early modern thriller starring the hardest working man of Hong Kong cinema (at the time), the great Jimmy Wang Yu. Looking fresh faced, handsome and very stylish, Wang kicks ass in typical Wang fashion, in a host of fast and furious fight scenes directed by kung fu veteran Han Ying Chieh, who also plays one of the bad guys of the flick!
A Man Called Tiger was rumoured to be the third collaboration between Bruce Lee and director Lo Wei (with Lee going on to make his own Way Of The Dragon), and as much as I love Jimmy Wang Yu, would loved to have seen the alternate version with the little dragon. While not the most graceful of movers, Wang Yu's raw and fast energy works for this thriller with plenty of impressive moments and moves, often more violent than usual.
The fantastic James Tien co-stars as Wang Yu's friend who aids him in his search to find his fathers killers, getting in on the action when he can. The film has a great cast overall with a young Lam Ching Ying (Mr. Vampire) popping up throughout as a thug, as well as any other familiar faces of HK cinema. It makes a change seeing them in this Kyoto setting rather than the over-used 70's Hong Kong cityscape that so many other releases of the time were using. Even director Lo Wei himself gets a cameo...
With this US VHS version coming in at a fast 76 minutes, and with a fight almost every 5 minutes, A Man Called Tiger passed pretty quick. I do believe the Fortune Star HK release is 100 minutes long, but at time of writing I have yet to get that version and would say it probably slows the pace somewhat!
With little explanation to some characters and a bit of a convoluted plot, the film has enough fun fights and great stunts, and closes with a pretty sweet, violent heavy, action packed battle with Jimmy Wang Yu in top gear, kicking ass like he means it - and as a martial arts film, that's pretty much why we want to watch it, isn't it?
Overall: A decent, martial arts thriller that entertains and makes Wang Yu look the slickest he's ever looked, even if some of it makes no sense!
