Many sources treat "Cub Tiger from Kwang Tung" & "Master with Cracked Fingers" as alternate titles for the same movie. In fact, it seems they're pretty different. Reviews of MWCF mention training in secret with an old beggar, being put in a bag of snakes, the beggar & 'the landlord' fighting, & a fight where fighters are blindfolded - none of that is in CTFKT.

Apparently, after the success of "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master", someone pulled the footage for CTFKT (filmed in 1971) off the shelf, filmed new scenes with a Jackie Chan 'double', Dean Shek, & Yuen Siu Tien (Simon Yuen), cut some original scenes, & released the result as "Master with Cracked Fingers".

CTFKT opens with 2 men trying to escape from a gang. One of them is injured by the gang leader's "Leg of Doom", then later says he is dying & asks his brother (Tien Feng) to "take Hsiao Hu far from here ... & don't let him become like us". Then he reveals himself to the gang & is killed by the boss in the ensuing fight.

Cut to the credits, with Hsiao Hu (Jackie Chan at age 17, with a bad hair cut) doing some impressive-looking acrobatics & kung fu practice.

Hsiao Hu's uncle has forbidden him to fight, but he gets into fights anyway, defending his friend the pickpocket 'Little Imp' and his boss at the restaurant where he works. He does try to avoid fighting, even letting the gang punch him without fighting back at one point, but then his 'sister' (really his cousin) gets involved & he fights to help her. As he keeps getting into fights, his uncle punishes him more & more severely, eventually making him stab his fingers into a dish of broken crockery then fight with his cousin which ends in her being seriously injured.

Meanwhile, the gang that Hu has been fighting with, egged on by the gang boss (the man who killed Hsiao Hu's father), keeps laying plots to get revenge. At one point they attempt to rape a neighbor & though he tries to obey his uncle & not respond, eventually he can't stand hearing her cries and rescues her.

Even after that Hsiao Hu's uncle resists allowing him to fight, but eventually he says that fighting for self-defense might be acceptable. The climactic fight between Hu & the gang boss ensues.

The plot is pretty standard, similar to other early Jackie Chan movies - there's a fair amount of melodrama & not a lot of humor. The movie's main point of interest is the fact that it's Jackie Chan's very first starring role. If you're not a fan of early 70's kung fu movies or a JC fan who wants to see all his movies, this may not be for you. That being said, I enjoyed it. The fights seems a bit faster-paced than in all those Lo Wei movies, & there are hints of the qualities that made JC a star later on.