Cast:

Yuen Biao

Yuen Wah

Yen Shi-Kwan

Wu Ma

Action:

Yuen Biao

Director:

Wu Ma

Score:  

KICKBOXER

AKA:  Kick Boxer || Once Upon A Chinese Hero || Once Upon A Time In China 6

Year: 1992    Reviewer: Andrew Saroch

Yuen Biao stars as the eager kung-fu student Lau Zhai in this new-wave flick that was among many to follow in the wake of the success of 'Once Upon A Time In China'.

After a brief herb gathering excursion, Lau Zhai and his assistant (Wu Ma) return to their school to help run their master's thriving practice. On the boat home, Zhai gets involved in a major fracas and, unbeknownst to him, is used to smuggle opium into the country. A mysterious golden-shoed policeman tracks Fu down and arrests him after discovering the opium in his luggage; Zhai is therefore ostracised by all his friends at the school and the surrounding area. After clearing his name and gaining the trust of the super-fighting policeman (Yen Shi-Kwan), Zhai focuses on the task of finding out the real villain behind the opium smuggling racket. This he achieves by gaining the trust of the man who originally used him as an unwitting smuggler and finding the vicious eagle claw master (Yuen Wah) who really pulls the strings. When his cover is finally blown, Lau Zhai stands alone against the villainous hordes in an electrifying encounter.

For some reason this excellent 'Once Upon A Time In China' spin-off is largely ignored. Perhaps the film's poor distribution and hard-to-find status have contributed to this. Whoever does track this down is in for a very enjoyable film that features some outstanding choreography that is expertly restrained in the wire department. Though the film doesn't offer the kind of multi-layered plots of the first two 'Once Upon A Time In China' films, 'Kickboxer' has plenty to offer. Biao's well-known screen persona of the bumbling innocent is as charmingly played as ever and he is once more teamed with his age old enemy Yuen Wah - again they set the screen alight in another of their exciting confrontations. Budget restraints are sometimes apparent, but this doesn't detract from another quality Yuen Biao vehicle.

Distributor:  Thundermedia

Region:  0 (NTSC)

Running Time:  92 mins

Video: 

Letterboxed at around 1.66:1.  The print itself is very watchable if a little bright in places.  It begins with quite a few noticeable scratches but they soon disappear and the only real distraction becomes the company logo that appears in the top left hand corner about 9 times during the film (it stays for 4 minutes the first time but each subsequent appearance is only for a matter of seconds).  I also noticed that during the opening sections of the film the letterboxed bars have the tendency to readjust themselves, particularly for one of the opening duels on the boat.  Overall, it's far from perfect but oddly enough I didn't find any of these problems all that bothersome.

Audio:

Mandarin only soundtrack with burnt on Chinese and English subtitles.  The first few lines of dialect are not subtitled but luckily they aren't incredibly important to the rest of the film.  The white subtitles do blend in with the background on a couple of occasions and slip off the sides once or twice but generally speaking they are not too bad.

Extras:  

None.