Pop star Vanness Wu plays the titular role, a young man named Manik whose mother is killed by bandits, and so he heads to Shanghai to find his father and hopefully gain some answers. An old kung fu master, Uncle Yeah (Bruce Leung), runs a shop staffed by gifted fighters, and brings Manik into the flock and puts him to work as a pedicab driver. One of Manik's passengers is Goldie (Emme Wong), a beautiful club singer whose relationship with a local gangster, Ching (Chan Kwok-Kwan), may hold the key to Manik's dad's identity.

Kung Fu Fighter's simple plot would seem to lend itself well to a martial arts film, and the gimmick of having a shop full of kung fu masters, each using a unique fighting style that incorporates everyday items like tea kettles and scissors, initially holds some promise. Unfortunately, besides a few flashes here and there, any sort of action is conspicuously absent for much of the first two acts of the movie.

Instead, a lot of attention is paid to the relationship between Manik and Goldie, which ultimately ends up going nowhere. The big payoff bestowed upon the viewer is yet another "emotional" scene in a Hong Kong movie featuring slow motion, pouring rain, and a syrupy Cantopop ballad -- which, of course, was shoehorned in so Vanness Wu could sell some more records.

Kung Fu Fighter does pick up during the finale, especially during a fight between Vanness and Fan Siu-Wong (who also handled the movie's action direction). Annoyingly though, just as business is really picking up, the duel just ends. Obviously, the lack of a real ending screams out that the film-makers were hoping for a sequel. But given the half-ass product squeezed out here and cold reception given by audiences on both sides of the ocean, that's really wishful thinking.