Magnificent Butcher (1979)

Terrible story, great kung fu

The Magnificent Butcher starring Sammo Hung was a mixed bag for me. I didn’t like most of the comedy surrounding Sammo’s character, in fact, I found his character grating at the beginning of the movie. Around the 60 minute mark the fights picked up in quantity and quality. With both Yuen Woo Ping and Sammo choreographing the fights, there was no doubt they would be fast and destructive.

Butcher Wing goes to the Wong Fei Hung school and is always causing problems. When WFH goes out of town on vacation he gives Wing the strict order to not cause any trouble. Unbeknownst to Wing, his brother and sister-in-law are in town searching for him. They run afoul of the smarmy and treacherous Ko Tai Hoi who kidnaps Lam Sai Kwong’s wife. The Beggar King comes to town when the brothers who are still unknown to each other end up on opposite sides due to Ko’s nefarious actions. The kung fu drunkard stumbles around and helps them sort things out. Ko is not done with any of them and has murder in his eye.

Like many of these kung fu comedies made famous by Jackie Chan, there was plenty of death to go along with the slapstick antics. A violent attempted sexual assault was disturbing and led to other prominent deaths. And those deaths led to more deaths as each side sought revenge.

Sammo was 27 and acrobatic. Neither villains nor stuntmen wanted to connect with his meaty fists. Fan Mei Sheng played Wing’s drunken mentor. He was not a kung fu artist though he could mimic moves. The big floppy hat, hair and beard allowed for the stunt double to take over when the real fighting began. He is also famous for being actor Louis Fan’s father. Kwan Tak Hing was 74 and still limber and spry. Famous for playing Wong Fei Hung at least 77 times, he acquitted himself well in his calligraphy brush action scene as did his stunt double for the more strenuous moves. Poor Fung Hak On was an accomplished martial artist who acted in over 200 films though usually as an extra, “thug”, or criminal of some sort. Here he played the vile Ko Tai Ho. Lee Hoi Sang was the rival school master Ko Ba Tin and in the grand finale fight with Sammo which was a thing of beauty.

I truly disliked the first hour of the Magnificent Butcher, the comedy and sexual assault did not set well with me. If you love early Sammo humor, I’m sure you’ll like this film more than I did. Once the more entertaining fights began (fans, elbow knives, poles, and cat style-hiss!) the film drew me in. There was no denying that Sammo and Woo Ping knew how to choreograph exciting fights. As always, I grade these old kung fu films on a curve.

11 August 2025

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Impressively goofy yet equally dark

A spiritual successor to Yuen Woo-ping's earlier triumph, Drunken Master, The Magnificent Butcher does take a while to get going but once it does, it doesn't let up. Its action is consistently wonderful, often the result of a misunderstanding due to Sammo Hung's character being too impatient to hear the whole story leading to a series of unfortunate events throughout. The combination of Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao is always a treat and here it's no different, but as a comedy film first, the tone is right down the middle, featuring everything from fart jokes and the Popeye theme to an incestuous rape which drastically changes the direction of its story, if a little clumsily. Regardless, what The Magnificent Butcher does offer is Woo-ping patterned precision and creativity when conducting a fight scene with the two different tones of the movie offering such visceral moments of martial arts excellence.

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