New Fist of Fury DVD: Review By carl

In 1972 Martial Arts superstar Bruce Lee starred in what many fans believe to be his finest film. That film, The Chinese Connection, better known as Fist Of Fury, saw Bruce Lee playing a a martial arts student named Chen Cen who was (you'll never guess this) seeking revenge for the death of his master. However what would have otherwise been a standard chop socky 70's kung fu flick was made more interesting by it's portrayal of the tension felt between the Chinese people and Japanese people of the times. Fast forward 4 years to 1976 and Bruce Lee is dead, but one of the Stuntmen from the original Fist Of Fury, a pre superstar Jackie Chan, was given the opportunity to star in a sequel titled simply New Fist Of Fury.

In New Fist Of Fury Chan plays a young, hot headed thief named A Lung, a man with an abject hatred for the Japanese people. What he doesn't realize is that his mother is a Japanese woman who lives with one of the local Japanese martial arts schools. He's offered a position in this school by the master, but his ambivalence toward the work needed for learning martial arts, combined with his hatred for the Japanese leads him to decline. This results in a violent beating from the students, from which he only survives thanks to the help of the master of one of the rival Chinese schools. When the aggravations start and this master dies, his granddaughter Lier (the finance of Chen Sen in the first film) trains him in the martial arts so that he can put an end to the Japanese oppression in Taiwan.

To be perfectly honest I was disappointed with New Fist Of Fury, considering the promise the idea has. It's a Jackie Chan movie, that's a sequel to a Bruce Lee Classic, that was remade into a Jet Li classic and a Donnie Yen Tv series. Yet New Fist Of Fury doesn't live up to any of the style's used in the other films. Without Bruce Lee's input, and with Jackie Chan being too unknown to offer any input, the fight choreography ended up being of the old school, stiff limbed variety. There's none of the graceful ballets found in Chan's later films, and none of the brutal violence of Lee's. Still it attempts to make up for the lack of impact inerrant in such slow, obviously pulled moves, by filling your ears with a variety of extremely loud Thwacks, thwocks and thwicks. Whether the character was pulling off a punch, kick, or simply bashing someone over the head with his Nunchuka's, the impact would be felt with all of these odd noises. Best of all though is the token move itself, the Fist Of Fury. A move that drives fear into the very soul and involves, erm, waving ones arms about in slow motion with a psychedelic blur filling your hands (I'm talking deadly stuff here).

Though anyone expecting even a little common sense from New Fist Of Fury is going to be sorely disappointed. It doesn't examine the cause of the conflict between the Chinese and Japanese people, doesn't explain why Lung feels so strong a hate for them and never bothers with crafting any really sympathetic Japanese characters. The only Japanese individual with anything resembling a positive personality is Lung's mother, who I think was a prostitute for the martial arts master. It's a film that probably wouldn't get made today, because it does seem to indicate that there is a justified divide between these people, and that all Japanese people are evil and needs to be stopped. You'll never get to see Lung grow, discover his mother and have a change of attitude, but you will see him take revenge. In fact for some people, this is going to be considered Propaganda of the time and country it was made.

I don't see it that way, personally I see it as a kung fu movie, that uses those particular times to tell a typically simplistic story. It's as ridiculous as you would expect, with a villain who takes on Ninja assassins, with some amazing powers (such as one scene where he catches a knife in his mouth, and with a flick of the neck has thrown into his assailants chest), yet despite these powers ends up being defeated by a boy who's been studying Kung Fu for a few weeks (which makes sense because that boy is 'Determined'). However the problem is that this simplistic story is really all we are presented with. Like I said before the fight scenes have been horribly choreographed, but when you get them you still feel lucky because they come about so rarely. Jackie Chan isn't given a chance to shine due to the fact that his character doesn't learn any form of martial arts until the last 20 minutes, and so it really defeats the purpose of a kung fu movie. However if you like these kind of cheesy flicks, then you'll probably enjoy New Fist Of Fury. It has some fun training sequences, and the final fight between Chan and the Master using different weapons is a chop socky fans dream, even if the ending was a little, well, abrupt.

There's an interview with Jackie Chan where he discusses his movies. I enjoyed this because he talks about what he is trying to do with his latest films, and doesn't even mention New Fist Of Fury. Though the interviewer was too quiet so I missed most of the questions.

There's both a biography and a filmography for Jackie Chan, which are always good but pretty standard. However as interesting as the biography was to read, the background noise that opened it proved to be an annoying distraction.

There's also a trailer for the rest of the Jackie Chan collection, though personally I would have preferred the theatrical trailer for New Fists Of Fury.

Not bad, it's been given the best cleanup possible, and is now presented in the wide-screen format that it was always intended to be. However it's still an old film from a foreign country, and as such there remains a lot of dirt on the film.

It's been given a decent cleanup on the sound too, but it still sounds very muffled. However I was annoyed that there is only an English track. I fail to see the point in releasing a box set of DVD's designed for aficionado's of Chinese cinema, and deciding that they have to see it in the wrong language. This was bad enough when they did it with VHS, but on DVD they can include 2 tracks, with minimum fuss and no loss of quality on a film like this. Yet they still decide for you, that a Chinese film should be watched in English, because after all I'm too stupid to be able to read subtitles right!

One of the lesser martial arts films, New Fist Of Fury is an interesting history lesson for fans of Chan, but not really anything for anyone else. I was very disappointed with the disk though.

Language: None

Sex/Nudity: None

Violence: some moderate, weapons.

Theme/Contents:Martial Arts, revenge, prejudice.