Shaw Brother Legendary Weapons of China (1982) Review

Legendary Weapons of China (1982) is a #ShawBrothers Lau Kar-Leung #kungfu classic about a secret society of Boxers that practiced the art of pugilism to defeat the foreign invasions and their guns and are given an edict to hunt down a man that tried to shutdown their society. It follows two characters from separate sects that trace the infamous Lui Gung to a town to confront him with their orders to kill him for this betrayal. However, the real story is about Lau Kar-Leung and his IRL brother Lau Kar-Wing being able to show off their martial arts prowess with the 18 weapons.

The movie starts with the introduction of a few key characters where they each give a small demonstration of various weapons as they fight off unknown assailants. The music is intense and the action high paced to really catch the viewer, even though you really have no idea why anyone is fight other than it looks cool and that we’ll get to see these characters and weapons as the stars of the show.

From there several of the main characters make their appearances, beginning with Tien Ho played by Hsiao Ho. Tien Ho performs a bizarre ritual with candles, incense and nonsensical kung fu and eats a pair of candles/incense for no apparent reason (candy flavored?). Afterwards, an official drops by one of these meeting spots and mentions the betrayal by Lui Gung for which the leader here must order Lui Gung’s assassination. Part of this scene involves various black garbed fighters leaping about and using trickery like smoke and bombs to create an air of deception and intimidation. The other part is expatiation on why Lui Gung is scheduled for termination as he dissolved a portion of this society on the basis that their operations were found on their fraudulent magic and pugilism, which supposedly made them immune to guns.

In a way, Lui Gung’s premise is pretty much a meta belief of Lau Kar-Leung where I think he was ridiculing the direction of kung fu movies where they showed special effects over the real martial arts. Also, I think this idea was similar to the Boxer Rebellion (1976) with less emphasis on the political implication of that period but more on the kung fu and philosophical aspects behind the Boxers and pugilism.

In addition, Tien Ho is selected to be the one from that sect to pursue Lui Gung. Since years have passed, they do not have a clear physical description of Lui Gung, which makes the investigation a challenge. The only notable aspect is Lui Gung’s inability to stop bragging about his own abilities, which might’ve been an inside joke about Lau Kar-Leung himself.

From there, we meet another sect led by someone who hides his face and uses a voodoo doll to control his men. The final sect gives one last exhibition of the pugilism technique itself. This time Ti Tan, a monk played by Gordon Liu, performs another ritual where though his men can defy normal weapons, they still cannot withstand bullets. The official sees the men perish and is incensed because of how long they have been practicing without reaching their true goal. On top of that, he reveals that the membership of the society has been decreasing and accuses Lui Gung of being responsible. Besides Ti Tan, another high ranking member makes her appearance in Fang Shau-Ching, played by the gorgeous Kara Hui. Unlike other members, Fang Shau-Ching seems keenly aware of the desperateness of the situation and shows compassion as he comrades are eliminated without reason.

Next, Tien Ho travels to Canton to initiate his side of the investigation. At a tea house, we meet various bizarre characters as well as Fang Shau-Ching, who has disguised herself as a man (despite wearing makeup). Also, Ti Tan sits amongst a group with a hat, bearing a staff to pick up clues. The aforementioned bizarre characters are a mustache wearing Lui Yung played by Lau Kar-Wing and Mo, a loud, braggart who combs his beard and attracts a lot of attention. Since Tien Ho was given an order to find anyone who brags as being Lui Gong, he immediately suspects or at least becomes suspicious of this character Mo. Fang Shau-Ching and Lui Yung also take interest in this odd character before he gallops off on his horse to the town.

They end up staying at a busy inn in town. Tien Ho makes inquiries there and notices Fang Shau-Ching and Lui Yung nearby. He trips a waiter to test Lui Yung where Lui Yung catches the waiter and thereby confirming that he may know kung fu. When Lui Yung retires to his room, Tien Ho observes which room to further examine later in the evening. Both Tien Ho and Fang Shau-Ching attempt to search the room from the attic but encounter one another. As they are about to fight, Ti Tan appears with several people from the inn. Tien Ho and Fang Shau-Ching exchange a series of ninja-like attacks while pretending to be a cat. Eventually, Ti Tan grows impatient and lifts a ceiling tile which explodes with smoke as the two inn helpers panic and a cat drops down. However, Ti Tan discovers that flash paper was used, even though the helpers believe it’s a ghost or magic involved.

The following day Tien Ho spots an old man and suspects it’s Lui Gung. This person to the town is Uncle Yu played by the director himself. Here, he’s a woodcutter. Once again Tien Ho uses his tripping trick to determine if this person knows any kung fu. Unlike Lui Yung, Uncle Yu flies onto a table clumsily and flays about like a helpless turtle. So momentarily his suspicions are allayed until Uncle Yu brings over 300 pounds of fire wood through the inn where each log is neatly chopped.

As Uncle Yu makes his way back towards his home, he notices someone hiding behind drying racks of cloth and falls back like a doddering old fool. Dramatically, Tien Ho flies overhead to check on the commotion. He accuses Uncle Yu of summoning/creating the wind that caused the rack of clothes to fall over while the real perpetrator escapes. In turn, several people think that Uncle Yu is Lui Gung but he plays it off. Tien Ho remains persistent and even starts his ritualistic powers but gets interrupted as things heat up by a person dressed in white, which distracts him.

Tien Ho hunts the intruder into an alleyway, where he finally gets to meet Fang Shau-Ching. He notices that she carries the same hook he witnessed the previous night at the inn and both inquire what their purpose was on that night.

Both reveal their orders to find and kill Lui Gong. But before Fang can mention her situation, Ti Tan arrives so both scale the walls and hide amongst the drying cloth to avoid his notice. As Ti Tan slowly walks through the alleyway, droplets pelt his hat from the clothes until he goes under their area where the droplets halt. In turn, Fang and Tien Ho keep up their ruse by spitting on Ti Tan’s hat but it’s not enough to dismiss him as he spots Fang’s fan.

Both jump over the other side, although the dubbing here has Ti Tan mention that he not only recognizes the fan of his sect but promising to find Lui Gong. On the other side of the wall, Tien Ho and Fang continue having their discussion, pretending to be civilized as other normies are in plain sight and that the situation is more of an internal dispute. Fang identifies the bald monk, calling him her uncle but I think this is a bad translation. Nonetheless, she mentions that she’s from a different sect than Ti Tan while Tien Ho states that he doesn’t want to see Fang around when he performs the rights. I think they missed Fang talking about her true purpose, which is to help Lui Gong or deny her order, which is why Tien Ho takes issue with her.

We return to Mo’s story where he learns his check for the inn has bounced. But it’s clear that Mo is a confidence man as he meets some shady cohorts and reveals that he’s using disguises to fool various inns but now has run out, hence why he shaved his mustache/beard off. However, his friends have a new special mission for Mo to perform where he gets to play a martial artist, which will make them rich. This job is sponsored by Lui Yung, who sits in the corner and had noticed Mo from before and wants him to lure Lui Gong out into the open.

In turn, they put on a show in town, using various tricks to make Mo into this legendary Lei Gong character. In reality, this showing is also very meta at least for kung fu enthusiasts as it almost breaks the 4th wall in showing how these types of displays are done behind the scenes with fake weapons, hidden blades, fake blood, etc. While this is going on, Tien Ho watches in the crowd, actually believing this chicanery.

At the end of the showing, Mo goes outside of the town to collect his money from Lui Yung with his cohorts hiding. They meet this guy in an outhouse among all places with Tien Ho tracking them down. A fight breaks out where Lui Yung hypnotizes Mo and uses his voodoo doll to control him and attempt to beat back Tien Ho. At the same time, Mo’s cohorts are amazed at this power and wrestle with Lui Yung, which causes poor Mo to be tortured while fending off Tien Ho.

This is actually a pretty funny scene just to get to see Fu Sheng do expressions and hop around. Eventually, Lui Yung tosses the doll into the water while the cohorts realize that the power no longer is effective. At the same time, Mo awakens from his trance but is forced with the others to dumpster dive in the “shit water” for their money.

Tien Ho had been immersed in the “shit water” too which causes Fang and Ti Tan to react with disgust towards him. However, Tien Ho’s malignant bath sickens him. The investigation continues with the three tracking down Lui Gong to his home off in the distance. Lui Yung goes into the home to discover it’s empty. Tien Ho figures that Yung’s failure to find Lui Gong made his own efforts futile especially as his illness worsens. However, Fang decides to take a closer look and finds numerous weapons hidden in the woodcutter’s home.

As a result of her discovery, Fang confronts Uncle Yu and directly names him as Lui Gong. She tells her purpose for hunting him down with the order to kill him as well as showing her knowledge of Lui Gong and the formation of the secret society. There’s an interesting little political line about why the society was formed as a way to cut down on the cost of the empress’ purchases by creating this elite fighting force, which obviously failed. Uncle Yu warns her that her bold statements are good for treason but she tells him that he will be assassinated in his home later that evening.

Both Tien Ho and Lui Yung show up as it’s pouring rain from above. The house seems empty although Tien Ho and Lui Yung have a small confrontation. Yet Tien Ho is too ill to follow through and passes out before Lui Yung determines that Lui Gong is not around. Tien Ho drops some stars on the ground for which Fang picks up and asks Uncle Yu, who shows he knows some kung fu in a defensive stance.

However, Uncle Yu’s concern is for the sick Tien Ho. Nonetheless, Fang continues to insist that Uncle Yu is Lui Gong and he finally admits his true identity. Furthermore, Fang persists in imploring Lui Gong to further reveal the falseness of the pugilism and other powers of their secret society because of how young people like Tien Ho have been deceived. In turn, she encourages Lui Gong to rebuild his kung fu as he will have to confront the other members who are set on killing him.

As Lui Gong nurses Tien Ho back to health, he also practices with Fang to regain his strength. At some point, Lui Yung appears and establishes himself as Lui Gong’s blood brother.

This is where the story starts to muddy up, at least to me if you don’t pay enough attention. Lui Yung has the same order as the others to kill Lui Gong and briefly engages with Lui Gong when Lui Gong dares Lui Yung to try. However, Lui Gong’s kung fu has greatly diminished after he retired so Lui Yung refuses to perform the rite. Instead, he tells Lui Gong that he still has good foundation and can rebuild himself but will be waiting to challenge him properly. I think this part can be a little confusing because it establishes as Lui Yung supposedly as this honorable character, who refuses to kill Lui Gong. But this aspect gets demolished later on and you have to listen carefully to get the details on Lui Yung’s reasoning behind this convoluted machination.

After Lui Yung departs, Tien Ho becomes conscious again and confronts Uncle Yu in seeing Uncle Yu’s expertise with an axe. Fang tries to calm Tien Ho down with herbal tea and Uncle Yu for the moment denies being Lui Gong. Tien Ho (who really is a gullible stooge if you think about it) accepts Uncle Yu’s excuse.

From there Uncle Yu makes progress on his kung fu techniques while Tien Ho also recovers. He witnesses Uncle Yu’s prowess which makes him doubt Uncle Yu’s identity. Uncle Yu tries to give the impression that he’s hunted because of how he looks like Liu Gong with Fang vouching on being his teacher. Fang also gets into a small fight with Tien Ho and Tien Ho incidentally touches her boobs, which forces her to unveil her identity as a woman. Yet Tien Ho momentarily is placated.

Tien Ho fully recovers and decides to leave to continue his quest. Uncle Yu hints that Tien Ho will meet Lui Gong soon enough. Also, Fang appears fully dressed as a woman, which excites Tien Ho. However, it’s Ti Tan’s turn to visit and confront Liu Gong. Naturally, this is an opportunity for all three to fight with Ti Tan. Here though, Tien Ho finally figures out that Uncle Yu is Liu Gong but this time Liu Gong accepts the accusation. The fight mostly is Liu Gong vs Ti Tan where Liu Gong disables Ti Tan by deafening him and pointing out that Ti Tan’s pugilism can’t withstand Liu Gong’s fingers which means against guns his kung fu is hopeless. He also says that all the tricks are fake kung fu (which again is a Lau Kar-Leung thing) and that he isn’t a traitor because of how this futile endeavor to master pugilism against guns will only cause the death of all their members. This part changes Tien Ho’s view of Liu Gong but he’s still confused. In turn, Ti Tan though deaf decides to return to Shaolin to meditate because one more member will show up later to try and defeat Liu Gong.

At night, Liu Gong and Fang await inside of Liu Gong’s home while Tien Ho and Tieh Tien (Tien Ho’s master) show up to try and finish Liu Gong off. Tieh Tien uses a variety of tricks but is unable to defeat Liu Gong. But he does try to get Tien Ho to kill himself after momentarily hypnotizing him but Liu Gong blocks the attempt. When Liu Gong defeats Tieh Tien, Tieh Tien is humiliated and tries to take his own life but Tien Ho stops him. In turn, Tieh Tien spares Liu Gong and Tien Ho then leaves.

Finally, Liu Gong decides that he needs to take on his brother as the “final boss” for this movie. He uncovers a traditional robe and shaves as part of a bizarre family tradition before he goes to a temple to fight Liu Yung. Fang and Tien Ho accompany Liu Gong as witnesses and bring the 18 legendary weapons with them. The full plot is revealed here by Liu Yung as Liu Gong says that this whole matter was orchestrated by Liu Yung as a way of consolidating his own power. I will return to that point afterwards but from here on out it’s mostly a 1 vs 1 between Liu Gong and Liu Yung in giving a demonstration of the 18 weapons. I counted maybe 12 weapons in usage or so with the other 6 being used in Liu Gong’s fight with Tieh Tien. Each time a new weapon is used, a small subtitle is shown to define what the proper name is.

At one point, Liu Yung tries to resort to chicanery by hypnotizing Tien Ho. Yet his power has diminished as his concentration is almost gone. From there Liu Gong demands that they just use their fist to finish off the contest. Liu Gong beats Liu Yung and cripples him but accedes in allowing Liu Yung to live, return to the capitol and tell the others that he beat Liu Gong. Liu Yung weeps in defeat but I assume this whole matter is handled in this fashion for Liu Gong to humiliate Liu Yung in a personal rivalry but sparing him and putting out the word that Liu Gong is dead so he can live in peace.

So this movie is really convoluted if you’ve only watched it once. The various names, societies and changing of identities with poor dubbing make it somewhat difficult to follow. I didn’t understand why it would take five different people to hunt down Liu Gong or more importantly why they didn’t attempt to coordinate their efforts. Obviously, Fang had her own set of plans but the other four didn’t bother to work together, despite having similar orders. If there was a special code required for these orders to be carried out (outside of committing oneself one the ritual was performed), it wasn’t explained.

What partly hurts the movie is the interruption with the nonsensical subplot involving Fu Sheng as a confidence man. Obviously, the idea here was to give Fu Sheng some comedy time as he was moving more in that direction in his career. But the subplot had very little to do with the main plot except for Tien Ho getting sick as a result of diving into the feces laden water. Fu Sheng was great but also annoying too especially because they gave him a really corny dubbed voice.

The dubbing in this movie is quite bad to be frank. You either have the froggy voice or the grunting voice, which can get a little confusing when people are trading lines off. Because of the numerous names, places and attempt at world building, it’s easy for anything Chinese related to go over ones head unless you keep a careful tabulation. Also, I felt that the emotion that they wanted to convey was subverted because of the dubbing such as when Lui Gong was fighting off Ti Tan and telling him that he didn’t want to see his students getting killed.

Naturally, what makes this movie a classic are the fight scenes. In particular, most people will probably cite the final fight between Lui Gong and Lui Yung as a must see as we get to see the two brothers show their stuff. Also, the fight between Ti Tan and Lui Gong is quite good while Mo’s robotic hypnotized character is a hoot. The message that Lau Kar-Leung seemed to have wanted to project here though I think got lost because of the kung fu especially with the fight scene between himself and Gordon Liu. But at least for the English dubbed part, it definitely was diminished.

So not necessarily my top Lau Kar-Leung movie where he is able to bring everything together. I felt like he was trying to do too much with some ridicule aimed at more modern kung fu spectacles. But it’s difficult seeing that part if you’re trying to watch for plot and the kung fu itself as it seems more like a personal joke or attack against the martial arts filming industry that might be a little too subtle for the casual fan.