REVIEW:
Thundering Mantis may have stuck to genre conventions for the most part, but I still found this film especially entertaining. I felt there were ample amounts of well-crafted kung fu combat. Robert Tai played loose with the "Mantis" style by incorporating drunken boxing and other less formal movements that appear wild and erratic. By the end, Kar Yan goes completely off his rocker and his physical performance rivals Jackie Chan's Young Master finale for sheer, unstoppable insanity. Wong Yat Lung plays the kid who befriends Kar Yan and deserves mention for his acrobatic skills and fighting. He performs a memorable drunken boxing fight and also shows incredible endurance. The ending to this film deserves the highest praise for turning Kar Yan into a raving lunatic. His frenzied fight with Eddy Ko and his men is one of the most intense you'll ever see and ends on a truly bizarre note. For those who like a bit of craziness in their kung fu, I highly recommend seeing this!

Suffering badly from his wounds Ah Chi is rescued by an old man and his grandson. When it becomes apparent that the old man is an expert at Mantis Fist kung fu Ah Chi tries to trick him into taking him on as his student. The story features the familiar plotline of grumpy old master refusing to take on any more students. Eventually Ah Chi succeeds and, armed with his new techniques, is ready to take on the Jade Horse gang again.

While this might be a bare bones plot filled with all the familiar cliches it still manages to entertain due to the many interesting characters. For the most part the film plays like a light kung fu comedy (something at which Leung Kar Yan is surprisingly good at) and the film moves along at a fair pace. There are plenty of fights where Leung Kar Yan again looks like a natural despite the lack of formal training and limited kicking ability. Eddie Ko also provides some great villainy as the white faced leader of the Jade Horse gang.

The real magic of this movie though is in the last twenty minutes when it all turns much darker and Ah Chi goes on the rampage. Leung Kar Yan gives an absolutely manic performance in what must be one of the most intense showdowns in a kung fu movie taking on about 20 attackers before a final duel with Eddie Ko. Its intense stuff with lots of bone crunching and squirting blood. Fans of 'The Victim' should definitely check this out.

The success of Sleeping Fist meant the re-teaming of popular kung-fu star Leung Kar-Yan and acrobatic youngster Wong Yat Lung for a film that stays pretty much within the boundries of the kung-fu genre. The film follows the well-known storyline of 'fighter finds master: master teaches hidden secrets to new student: villain kills master: fighter exacts revenge' and within these conventions is an enjoyable yet unremarkable kung-fu film. However, the last ten minutes flips this onto its head as the audience literally see Leung Kar-Yan go insane and decimate the villain's hordes. Cackling, crying and shrieking, the hero suddenly goes beyond the usual confines of revenge and enters complete madness; the effect of this on the film is jaw-dropping to watch. The Thundering Mantis is a three star film that earns a fourth for its remarkable ending and Leung Kar-Yan's virtuoso performance as the hero driven straight over the edge.