Little Godfather: Reviews

Reviews Reviews:
Little Godfather
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    by Kung Fu Cinema
    www.KungFuCinema.com




[HKFlix Note: This review may contain minor spoilers.]

Premise: Wang Liu is a famous movie star and also a kung fu expert. After helping an Interpol agent during an attempted murder on his life, he finds himself in trouble with an Italian crime family. With his brother killed there can be only one outcome, bloodshed!

Review: Bruce Leung (as Bruce Liang) stars in this Ng See Yuen outing. After founding Seasonal Film Company, Ng See Yuen was very innovative and never afraid to experiment with new ideas. Little Godfather from Hong Kong was to be a fusion of kung fu and the popular Italian crime genre. The result is not entirely satisfying and the script is at times horrible, but Bruce Liang shows that he can surely kick! And for those wondering about the exploitation part with a star named Bruce Liang, don't worry! Bruce Liang is his own man in the film and I wouldn't call this an exploitation film at all.

After a couple of titles, the film jumps right into the action with a series of executions. At the scene of the murders a card with the word "Interpol” is always left. What it comes down to is that a certain group of people has hired a crime family, known as the Carro's to eliminate Interpol agents from around the world. As luck would have it, Wang Liu (Bruce Liang) is there to help one Interpol agent escape from death. The Carros' reputation is hurt by this incident and they decide to get rid of this movie star and avid martial artist. They lure him to Italy with the false pretence that he's going to star in a film, called The End of Kung Fu no less! Wang Liu didn't realize the trouble he had gotten into though and his brother is the first victim of the Carro family. His insurance company thinks it's too dangerous for him to stay in Italy, but he has other plans. Thus, Wang Liu and his son stay in Italy so that they can take revenge!

I must say that his son is pretty annoying, always fiddling with everything and his dubbed voice isn't great either. Actually, the dubbing in general is terrible! The whole look of the film is very European, yet the dubbing doesn't do the visuals any justice. Shirley Corrigan also joins the cast playing one of Wang Liu's co-stars in the film he's playing in. Now she's really worth looking at, and they even include a lengthy nude scene for those interested.

Now the bad guys are made from your pretty standard crime family material. The father has three sons working under him and two of them are adopted. One being Yasuaki Kurata (as Kurata), who is as underused as he has ever been. You get this feeling that he's going to have a kung fu showdown with Bruce Liang, but it never happens. His end "fight” with Bruce is a terrible letdown with maybe ten seconds of actual fighting. And during the whole fight they seem to run halfway across Rome, all the way from the city into some random snowy landscape! The best scene is definitely when Wang Liu has to face off against the twisted adopted son (Gordon Mitchell) who walks around in Nazi uniforms! There is one thing I have to mention though, and this will probably offend viewers, but it's in the script. To give you an idea of how twisted the head of the family is, he says the following when they remember the wonderful times of his recently deceased son, "One day he killed two Negroes. He came home as if nothing had happened, and I knew he was the type of son I'd be proud of." What a nice family... A couple of hired thugs also get their butts kicked by Bruce and his kicks nearly make the film worth seeing. The kung fu does look a bit out of place in the Italian setting though, but in the end it all nearly comes together.

An effort worth seeing by Ng See Yuen fans, but don't expect a miracle. Besides two pretty ladies and a couple of nice fights, I can't really recommend this film on anything specific. At least it's better than the average exploitation films that were being made at the time.

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    by Brentwood

ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
An American gang of drug smugglers is thwarted by a Chinese kung fu movie star (Bruce Liang) who, during his free time, carries on a one-man crusade against drug dealers. To get their revenge, they offer him a part in a new kung fu movie--in order to lure him to Chicago so they can kill him while the cameras are running and make it look like an accident.
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