Last Hero in China (1993)

AKA: Deadly China Hero, Claws Of Steel, Wong Fei Hung's Iron Rooster vs. Centipede

Director: Wong Jing

Producer: Stephen Shiu

Writer: Wong Jing

Cast: Jet Li, Dicky Cheung, Leung Kar-Yan, Gordon Liu, Anita Yuen

Running Time: 90/100 min.

Plot: See Perkele's review below.

NUMSKULL'S REVIEW: First of all, I want to say that the World Video DVD for this movie has an unforgivable manufacturing defect. Although Cantonese and Mandarin both appear as language options, you can only watch the movie in Cantonese. Why? Because, if you select Mandarin, the DVD restarts and the options go back to the default settings. Try it again, try it a third time, try it until your DVD player's remote control's batteries are completely drained...you'll always get the same result. So, who is responsible for this monumental fuck-up? Have they been fired? And, if so, then why the hell not? A trained chimp could have done a better job testing this thing, for fuck's sake.

Anyway...the movie itself combines Yuen Wo-Ping's fight choreography with Wong Jing's direction, so it's obviously a mixed bag. Jet Li plays Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung, and... ... ...you know what, I'm getting pretty fucking sick of Wong Fei-Hung all the damn time. I'm sure he was a great man and everything, but he's been portrayed in more friggin' movies than Count Dracula, Hercules, and Santa Claus combined. All you lazy Chinese film makers, next time you wanna make a period kung fu movie, just have the hero be some guy. Sane people don't give a shit about Wong Fei-Hung anymore because he's been in like a thousand fucking movies already. Give it a rest, dammit!

There, I said it.

The fact that this is the best Wong Jing film I've seen to date is a very sad commentary on his abilities, because it sure as shit ain't a great movie. Jet Li's talents were wasted on all of his collaborations with this hack. Fortunately, Yuen Wo-Ping injects some much-needed excitement into this lame story about a kung fu school moving in next to a brothel and young women being abducted by some screwy cult. There's a stupid musical number where the whores sing without subtitles in voices that are much different from the ones they use when they're just talking. There's also a very familiar-sounding score, a villain who laughs at everything, a sub-plot about medicine that makes people deaf, and a scene where Jet Li dresses up as a rooster to fight a giant centipede (not a real one...you know, it's being held up by a row of guys inside, just like those dragons). The dreaded No Shadow Kick makes an appearance and Wong Fei-Hung engages in some drunken fist kung fu in an apparent nod to Jackie Chan's Drunken Master films. There are outtakes in the ending credits; a rarity for Jet Li.

I don't wanna talk about this movie anymore. It's so average, it kinda pisses me off. Go away.

NUMSKULL'S RATING: 5/10

YATE'S REVIEW: This is one of Jet Li' s most uninspired films. The humor is unfunny, the plot , well, I dont think there really is one, and the colors gave me a headache. Why did Wong Jing make this film? There are a lot of great fights, I'll give it that (especially the one at the end with the chicken vs. the centipede and the one on the bridge with Gordon Liu), but overall, I was bored out of my mind. If you have to see one Wong Jing era Jet Li movie let it be 'High Risk', not this piece of shit. It seems the more I think of this film the less I like it. And to think, I wasted $10 on this mess! GRRRRRRRR!

YATE'S RATING: 1/10 (Good fights, shitty movie)

PERKELE'S REVIEW: This got to be the worst Jet Li vehicle I've seen! It even surpasses the lacklustre "The Master" both in terms of poorly-written plot and lame fights. I mean, to hell with the plot (does it really matter in a kung fu movie?) but when I sit back to watch a martial arts flick, I want to see even some goddamn martial arts! It's a surprise that these fights here are THIS awful, because the choreographer were Yuen Woo-Ping, who did some very enjoyable choreography on other Jet Li -movies ("Fist Of Legend" and "Once Upon A Time In China II" for example). This use of suspension wires really makes me sick! Wires can also be used to good effect (as done in Fong Sai Yuk), but watching all these motherfuckers flying around just doesn't do nothing but annoys me. And what comes to acting, this is one of Jet Li's most irritating performances. Beside Jet Li there are two other actors worth mentioning. The first is no other than Gordon Liu ("The Master Killer") as a flying monk, who rides a huge, red, flying lamp (it seems like a lamp to me, though) and then there is Leung Kar Yan ("Warriors Two", "Thundering Mantis"), who doesn't do so much of the flying (or the fighting either).

The story of this low-budget [special note: Wong Jing did over 20 films during the year 1993] Once Upon A China Time-ripoff tells how Wong Fei Hung (aagh, they're using the over-played theme music again!) tries to open a kung fu-school next to a brothel. Practically there are almost two looooong hours of fooling around and pointless talking. Oh yes, and a couple of fights. The climax sees Jet Li in a huge chicken costume battling a bunch of bad guys who are inside a giant centipede. Only good thing is that this all is so badly done that it made me laugh once or twice.

PERKELE'S RATING: 2/10