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ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
Happy go lucky, but morally upstanding son of a wealthy business man, Kwok Chung, is always getting into fights, much to his father's disapproval, and when he comes to the aid of a prostitute he is nearly killed. A mysterious snake fist fighter, Yue Yi, saves his skin. but this doesn't stop Kwok getting into trouble again with the local casino boss. The stranger gives Kwok lessons lessons in the snake fist and he soon masters the art, but he also learns that his father is actually the owner of the brothel and the casino which he had earlier raided. Disgusted by this revelation, Kwok sets up a meeting, only to discover that he has been used by his master to lure his father out into the open. The two old timers were in fact both disciples of the snake fist sect, but Kwok's father turned to evil and raped and killed Yue Yi's wife.
Now, after years of waiting, Yue Yi will have his revenge, but what of Kwok Chung?
Watch the three against three ending to find out in the rarest and deadliest kung fu ever! |
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| Kwok (Ng Kun Lung) prides himself on his upright character and his desire to fight against any villains in the town. However, Kwok is simply not good enough to live up to his beliefs and finds himself beaten regularly by those he encounters. During one such encounter, the young pretender is saved from a severe bruising by an expert Snake Fist fighter (Fong Hak On) who then appears a second time during a fight with a casino boss (Chan Hui Man). After saving him again, Kwok begs the stranger to accept him as a student and teach him this deadly style. Agreeing to the request, the master takes this new charge under his wing and slowly turns him into an expert fighter. With his faith now fully centred on his master, Kwok is told a shocking secret about his father. Added to this is the discovery that his master is far from righteous too and both men are in fact very familiar to one another. In a final showdown, the Snake Fist expert faces his student's father with the confused Kwok stuck in the middle.
There's ways to make the usual master/student storyline interesting and even refreshing. Sammo Hung's masterpiece 'Prodigal Son' and classics like 'Drunken Master', 'Magnificent Butcher' and 'Knockabout' all succeed in achieving this. Sadly, 'Snake Deadly Act' is too prosaic to escape its over-familiar plot; director Wilson Tong films the proceedings in a way that is easy to telegraph, but also lacking in energy. Therefore, every cliched scene lacks a real spark and is instead welded together mechanically. It's also significant that Ng Kun Lung - a real kung fu master - lacks the charisma and presence of Jackie, Sammo or Biao. These bad points do not make 'Snake Deadly Act' a complete waste of time though; with an accomplished cast of this nature on hand, it would be almost impossible not to make something that is at least entertaining. Whereas Ng Kun Lung struggles with his acting range, he is an accomplished martial artist who looks powerful in the film's later fights. There's also a few enjoyable performances by some of the genre's best loved faces; even in a mere cameo, Angela Mao is assured, showing all of her years of screen experience.
'Snake Deadly Act' is a typical example of a good, but not great independent kung fu flick. The end twists that open up a world of possibilities are very poorly handled and the opportunities to develop the characters are never taken. This means that 'Snake Deadly Act' never achieves what it could so easily have done. |
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A kung fu classic in the vein of "Drunken Master" and "Snake In The Eagle's Shadow", but far more energetic and violent than either of those two. It's also utterly pointless - with all of the fighting, there's no room for a plot. Some nasty guy rapes some other guy's wife. He decides to get revenge by killing the bastard, but is defeated. Twenty years later he teaches the villain's son snake fist kung fu and there's a vicious free-for-all between the three of them at the climax of the film, which literally ends on a freeze frame of the young kid killing his teacher. Lots a really great fighting and some really beautiful forms work, but the highlight is a brief sword fight with a whorehouse madam (the ever fantastic Angela Mao). Yuen Biao and Bolo Yeung show up in the tiniest of cameos as travelling circus performers, and there's even some lobster fu training sequences. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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