Half a Loaf of Kung Fu

The film starts off well enough with the spoofy opening titles, where Chan adopts a number of famous roles – such as Zatoichi – and mercilessly takes the mick with them. From there on, it's pretty much typical comedy kung-fu nonsense for an hour; most of it tests the patience, but some of it is funny. This is certainly a fast paced movie with numerous characters; Chan is a kid who ends up impersonating the Whip Hero, then there are lots of different groups of bad guys who end up getting involved with him. There's an odious beggar, an evil witch, and guys with moustaches and long hair which usually turns out to be fake. Add in some kick-ass femme fatales and an old DRUNKEN MASTER style teacher with some killer moves, and you have a generic but fun outing.

The film definitely improves in the final half hour, in which a cargo of treasure is ambushed by all the bandits at once. Non-stop kung fu takes place until the very end of the film, with decent fighting and comedy in between to make it more entertaining – like Chan trying to learn new moves whilst being beaten pretty bad. The film has a weird sense of humour, no doubting that; there's a dream where Chan turns into Popeye (yep, the music is here again) and he does stuff like throw eggs at the bad guys to repel them. The ending is pretty violent with broken arms and necks. The varied characters and their mannerisms always entertain. The dubbing is the same as that in most of Chan's films from this era, annoying but sometimes funny with it. Nothing special, but pretty good for one of Jackie's '70s movies.