Dragon’s Claws (1979) Review

Back to the indy #kungfu flick reviews as I finally had the opportunity in seeing this rather humorous endeavor called Dragon’s Claws (1979) starring Lau Kar-Yung as Lung Hsia. Lau Kar-Yung is the nephew of famous Lau Kar-Leung and part of the Lau Brother’s stunt team. He opposes the infamous kicker Hwang Jeong-Ri who plays Ling Ko Fung here. Dragon’s Claws more or less is a comedy but the real kicker (pun partly intended) is the ridiculous dub job that makes this film an absolute must watch.

Lung Hsia is the son of a famous instructor Lung Chen Tien, played by Lau Hok-Nin. Lung Chen Tien is known for his Dragon’s Claws technique (hence the name of the film) and competent but sickly. Lung Hsia himself is a goofy kid who doesn’t take his training seriously but acts quite brash and arrogant where he is only respectful upon getting his tail kicked around. And even then because he has an incredibly stubborn head, he practically has to be disabled before giving up his pursuits when he gets angry.

Ling Ko Fung one day stops by the school to search for teacher Lung Chen Tien. Instead, he encounters an old flame Li Hua, played by Yuen Qiu. We don’t get much of a backstory between these two except a flashback where Ling Ko Fung observes her own hesitation upon seeing him. Before they can converse, Lung Chen Tien returns with his contingent of students. At the moment, no one notices Ling Ko Fung’s presence but Ling Ko Fung temporarily steps aside in seeing the sickly old man.

Lung Chen Tien receives some medicine to alleviate his suffering at which Ling Ko Fung pays him respect. However, there is a bit of ridicule in Ling Ko Fung’s posture that only Lung Chen Tien understands as he asks why Ling Ko Fung has arrived. The truth is that Ling Ko Fung wants this gold plated heirloom and wishes to challenge Lung Chen Tien for it. However, as Lung Chen Tien is not 100%, he decides to wait which really is a subversive way of making Lung Chen Tien lose face in front of his students because of how Lung Chen Tien will not recover.

As a result, Lung Hsia decides to confront Ling Ko Fung himself. Of course, Lung Hsia is completely outclassed here and gets his ass severely whooped. At the end of this encounter, Ling Ko Fung shoves the medicine he attempted to provide to Lung Chen Tien down Lung Hsia’s throat. Let me say right here that Lung Hsia is kind of an asshole and pretty stupid. Despite how he’s clearly no match for Ling Ko Fung, he persists in pestering Ling Ko Fung, even though Ling Ko Fung is merely toying with him. I can’t say that Lung Hsia has a good heart either because he’s mostly just annoying and headstrong so it’s hard to really get behind him in this movie.

When Lung Hsia returns, his mother demands that he hand over the medicine. Lung Chen Tien believes that the medicine was meant to be poisonous, although the mother thinks otherwise. Suddenly, a bizarre old man who had been spying on Lung Chen Tien earlier appears as a drug seller. He offers Lung Chen Tien a huge “pill” for which Lung Hsia, of course, comes over and starts messing with this guy. Lung Chen Tien tries to get his son to stop misbehaving but Lung Hsia decides he has enough with the bum and tosses him. That causes the beggar’s pack to explode on the ground, releasing a ton of frogs. In the chaos, the beggar seems to hijack the gold pendant without anyone noticing. Nonetheless, in the end, Lung Hsia kicks the beggar out for good.

At night, Lung Chen Tien continues to experience excruciating chest pain. He removes his shirt as his wife brings a special medicine in the form of a piece of brown paper. Underneath his shirt, Lung Chen Tien shows several marks like those of fingerprints. A flashback displays a younger, hornier version of this guy and we see how Lung Hsia was conceived. The problem in this version of Lung Chen Tien is that he was a naughty, dirty wretch and ether gagged his wife. Her father accepted their marriage but to hide the fact of his misdeeds as well as their child. That doesn’t stop Lung Chen Tien from continuing to be aggressive against her. However, she smacks him in the chest, demonstrating that she used a special kung fu that has caused that injury. Either way, this just makes Lung Chen Tien less sympathetic as a figure in this story and illustrates how Li Hua is a bit of a harsh bitch.

However, Li Hua hears a disturbance outside, turning out to be Lung Hsia. The two have a small fight which shows her superiority over him. He almost runs off until she calls him out and mentions how Ling Ko Fung instructed him on running if one cannot beat their opponent. This Ling Ko Fung honestly does not sound like a bad guy when you examine the larger picture.

The following day at the school, two new faces bust inside as the students practice. Naturally, they destroy the students easily while Lung Chen Tien is summoned. Ling Ko Fung comes in to literally introduce the two guys as “Red Man” and “Green Man.”

That has to be one of the best lines in any movie. On hkmdb, these two are formally called “Red Monster” and “Green Monster.” Neither look like an actual monster but once again the bad dubbing makes this movie so much better especially because everyone (except the hero and the beggar) are trying to be serious here. Also, the music in this scene is ominous where you have to think the dubbers are just cracking themselves up with these names.

Regardless, their purpose is to act as judges on behalf of Ling Ko Fung challenging Lung Chen Tien. They have a ceremony before engaging in a one-on-one. Lung Chen Tien manages to hold his own with his Dragon’s Claws technique so Ling Ko Fung switches up his style to incorporate what people know Hwang Jeong-Ri for: his kicks. This, of course, defeats Lung Chen Tien but his wife accuses Ling Ko Fung of “cheating” even though he says that there are no rules insisting on using the Dragon’s Claws technique. So he grabs a fake pendant and takes off with his two assistants.

As Lung Chen Tien slowly dies, he requests for his wife to teach Lung Hsia their special kung fu. Of course, at the end of the day, Li Hua for whatever reason decides not to blame her husband anymore for what happened. On the other side of town, Ling Ko Fung celebrates with his men and realizes that the pendant is a fake. In turn, he revisits the school as the students and Lung Chen Tien mourn over the teacher’s passing. He isn’t welcome there and Ling Hsia tries to fend him off but fails miserably, getting his chest bashed in with the Dragon’s Claw. Then it’s Li Hua’s turn to get involved to save her son. But no one is a match for Ling Ko Fung and he issues an ultimatum to hand over the real pendant.

Despite everything, Ling Ko Fung sits and drinks himself in a depressed state at a brothel. A woman also called Li Hua is given to him but the name upsets him greatly where he slaps the shit out of her face then tells her, “You should change your name to Scarface!” Oh man, this movie is a riot. The fake Li Hua panics as the manager comes in and complains. The two assistants enter and kick the prostitutes out while making new plans to seize the real pendant.

The two assistants search the school and find it empty. Pretty much it has been abandoned with the students dispersed as Li Hua and Lung Hsia hide in a home in the mountains so that Lung Hsia can recuperate and practice kung fu. The two assistants continue their quests, encountering previous students and interrogating them and/or killing them in the process. Lung Hsia makes some progress but his mother is quite a hard teacher and he does not advance to her satisfaction. In fact, at this stage, Lung Hsia is embarrassing and even his comedic friend outshines him. However, Lung Hsia learns from his goofy friend that the drug seller/beggar taught him enough to be able to defeat Lung Hsia relatively easily.

In turn, Lung Hsia hunts for the drug seller, who hangs around in town and is resentful towards Lung Hsia for “kicking his ass” (they repeat this multiple times in this movie). This time Lung Hsia is far humbler in his behavior towards the old man, who suspects that Lung Hsia is still scheming. The beggar initially denies teaching Lung Hsia kung fu but still gives Lung Hsia a little payback in kicking his ass (this time requested by Lung Hsia). As Lung Hsia stumbles to the ground, Red and Green Man appear and punish Lung Hsia until the beggar steps in.

Impressed, Lung Hsia follows the old man to his place after they escape. The old man gets his own revenge against Lung Hsia until Lung Hsia hunches over from the internal injuries caused by the Dragon’s Claw move. He realizes that the situation is far more serious and takes Lung Hsia in, forcing him to swear to secrecy and refuses to allow Lung Hsia to call him master. At the same time, Ling Ko Fung has his men attempt to learn more about this old person.

The old man administers enough healing for Lung Hsia to return to his mother. While practicing, Lung Hsia has a brief episode from his lingering injuries for which his mother explains the ideas of vital points. Later, he returns to the old man, who gives him the awful medicine he’s peddling on the streets and starts Lung Hsia’s training. The assistants terrorize the countryside with their mission while Lung Hsia undergoes grueling studies.

There’s a fun little food scene with Lung Hsia gorging himself on some lunch. His mother tells him, “You’re like a pig.” They have a nice little food fight where the mom instills some discipline into the bratty Lung Hsia, who tries every trick to eat. But this scene is noteworthy just in the way Lung Hsia just over stuffs his face with food while the dub makes some ridiculous slurping noises.

Then in a completely random scene, the old man brings some kids to a river area where he gets them to pee in a jar. It’s pretty ridiculous just because the kids actually drop their drawers. You don’t see their wieners but it’s kinda messed up. One kid sprays the old man as though he had a water hose. In turn, when Lung Hsia goes to further his skills, the old man tricks Lung Hsia into drinking the urine. Supposedly, the urine will cure Lung Hsia’s ailments along with the medicine but I think he’s just fucking with the poor kid at this point.

Nonetheless, Lung Hsia actually improves drastically in the next stage of his training. His sturdier, faster and can deliver wood shattering blows. While returning to his mother, Lung Hsia encounters some bandits on the road, one of who tries to rape a woman. Lung Hsia delivers another kick for which this guy gives the best line in the movie, “Hey, he hit me in the asshole! Come and get the bastard!” Oh man, what is up with kicking people in their anus for this movie anyway?

Of course, this scene mostly is used to demonstrate Lung Hsia’s improvements. This dirties him up so his mother asks what happened for which he responds that he was practicing. She’s suspicious and the two have a fight for which he finally defeats her. As Lung Hsia’s takes off shirt, the mother notices that the bruises on his chest have disappeared so he reveals the identity of his teacher, her uncle who is the only person capable of curing him.

After Lung Hsia leaves, their bald headed monk friend shows up at the mom’s place. He’s been injured and is looking for Lung Hsia. The mom offers to help him but he takes off. In turn, Red and Green Man are waiting and kill him off. More than likely the monk was a trap for the mom and the two kill her off as well.

Back at the old man’s area, the old man gives the full background on Ling Ko Fung to Lung Hsia, explaining that Ling Ko Fung wasn’t always evil. But Lung Chen Tien’s marriage to Lung Hsia’s mother effectively drove Ling Ko Fung mad (probably to jealousy) for which he traveled to Manchuria to practice kung fu but using it for evil deeds. Also, the old man hands back the actual pendant and tells Ling Hsia that he knew his father wouldn’t be able to protect it. While Lung Hsia has learned what he can to defeat Ling Ko Fung, the old man tells him that he had been practicing kung fu to defeat someone else. If Lung Hsia succeeds in his mission, then the old man will be able to defeat his own arch nemesis and goes off to search for this person.

From here on out, Lung Hsia discovers his mother’s body and becomes serious enough to defeat Red and Green Man. Afterwards, he shows up at his family’s school where Ling Ko Fung is residing and challenges him. They have a fight for which Lung Hsia defeats Ling Ko Fung and gets him to bow before the pendant.

So the story only leaves out the part for the old man’s revenge quest. That never gets resolved and we have no idea whom his arch nemesis originally was. But all the main loose ends are tied up for the movie. I think the only messed up thing is that Lung Hsia never gets to realize what a jerk his father originally was. I think at the end, his father repented enough with his injuries and that the mother finally relented.

For the most part, I found the movie to be adequately entertaining. The kung fu is more modern and not droning compared to say The Clones of Bruce Lee. Yet it’s still done in a comedic fashion so it’s hard to really get invested into the action. The training portions for me at least are kinda meh and prototypical at that stage. There’s bits that get used but it doesn’t feel as impactful compared to a Master Killer movie.

The person I was looking forward to watching the most was Hwang Jeong-Ri but mostly his assistants do the bulk of the dirty work. Ling Ko Fung feels like Hwang Jeong-Ri dialed down by 60% of what he’s really capable of since he’s working with a goofy kid rather than a hi end kicker. And most of the fights with him and Lung Hsia are relatively funny even though you can take Ling Ko Fung seriously as a villain just because it’s Hwang Jeong-Ri and you’re waiting for him to unleash himself.

With Lung Hsia, he’s just too goofy for me. He’s like a skinnier version of a Lo Mang type of character, someone with arrogance and not a lot of brains but gets himself into trouble because of those qualities. Usually with Lo Mang’s characters, he’s far more appealing in that role (probably because he dies) whereas Lau Kar-Yung is close to being insufferable because he doesn’t undergo that much change in the movie. And the arrogance early on is not earned because he’s not shown as being competent so it’s hard to get behind him as he undergoes his trials and tribulations. Instead, we’re just laughing at him because he seems to enjoy making a fool out of himself.

I will say that the mother was actually the surprise of the movie for me. Even though she played the typical hard ass tiger mom type, she fit the role and backed it up with her martial arts prowess. She really didn’t take shit from anyone and I was a little sad to see her meet her end. But that did provide ample motivation for Lung Hsia to seek his revenge (although he was still acting goofy in his fights with Ling Ko Fung)

The main saving grace in this movie though more than anything is the dubbing. Someone on YouTube extracted the best lines and probably is one of the best “Chop Sucky” (the series) videos the guy has because of how ridiculous the translations come out to be. I recall watching this movie with a friend one night and how we both just lost it on the “This is Red Man and Green Man” line. It really seems that the dubbers were having too much fun with the lines here. Also, a lot of the voices were nasally and infused with this low, growling bass vocals that made the lines even funnier.

At any rate, I’ll re-watch this movie from time to time just because the dialog itself is great for a laugh. The movie pacing isn’t bad but I think the “Chop Sucky” version is better suited for my taste because it distills the important stuff to me down and removes the time consuming parts. I don’t think the fights really are worth watching but the dialog is.