Released overseas in 1993 as LAST HERO IN CHINA, this is yet another tale of righteous folk hero Wong Fei Hong--teacher, healer, lion-dancer extraordinaire. An actual person born in the mid-1800s, Wong has conceivably spawned more movies than any other character in history, but rarely if
ever one as off-the-wall and over-the-top as this.
In Canton around the turn of the century, two students of martial arts instructor Wong Fei Hong (Jet Li) convince him to move his crowded school to a more spacious location, not realizing that the building next door houses a brothel. Embarassed by this turn of events, the students attempt to
impress their teacher by busting a kidnapping and slavery ring operating out of a local temple, but get in over their heads and have to be rescued by Wong. The evil legate of the temple arranges to have Wong poisoned in retaliation, and at the lion dance contest soon after, Wong loses both his
hearing and the contest.
In shame, Wong is forced to leave Canton, and his school--along with the brothel--is seized by the legate, who won the contest with a squad of men in a centipede costume. The brothel owner (Nat Chan) soon discovers that the legate plans to kidnap a foreign emissary for political reasons. After
being severely beaten, the brothel owner allies with the students to warn Wong that the legate is sending men to kill him.
His hearing restored by a wandering healer, Wong routs the legate's assassins and returns to Canton to thwart the kidnapping plot, dressed as an armored chicken to battle the centipede. Finally he meets the legate mano a mano, and beats him with a display of Drunken Fist kung fu.
After completing ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA III (1994) in which he played Wong Fei Hong, star Jet Li had a falling out with director Tsui Hark and quit the series. Tsui's franchise continued with a replacement star as Wong Fei Hong (Li and Tsui reunited for part 6), while Li took the character to a
rival production company and commercial auteur Wong Jing. A ubiquitous presence in HK cinema, Wong Jing is renowned for his disjointed productions, but DEADLY CHINA HERO is more disjointed than most. Credit this to the decision (for the official US home-video version released in 1997) to randomly
excise a good 20-minute chunk from the first half of the film, neatly removing the introduction of numerous characters and concepts that figure into the ensuing plot and now show up unexplained and virtually incomprehensible.
Hardly a masterpiece, the film does work as both a genre tribute and a genre parody, stuffed with gimmicky and patently unrealistic action sequences making extensive use of wires and physical effects, and interspersed with scenes of broad comedy--some of which is esoteric (like the fact that
prostitutes are known as "chickens" in Cantonese), some broad slapstick. The final chicken vs. centipede liondance/duel (lifted from the 1981 Shaw Brothers comedy KID FROM KWANGTUNG) parodies countless 1970s chopsockys in which the hero implausibly triumphs by copying a particular animal's style
of fighting. It was also a nice touch to cast former kung fu icons Gordon Liu (1984's MASTER KILLER) and Leung Kar Yan (1984's THUNDERING MANTIS) in supporting roles, again acknowledging the precursors that this film exaggerates and burlesques. (Violence, sexual situations, profanity.) leave a comment
