The Fists, the Kicks and the Evil (1979)

Meh

The Fists, the Kicks, and the Evils starred Bruce Leung in a Jackie Chan style film about a fighter whose fists were bigger than his brain. And probably smarter.

A gang of martial artists is terrorizing a town by demanding extortion money and shutting down martial arts schools by killing the masters. Ah Lang is a hot head who just wants to fight never thinking of the consequences. Because of his hubris three people dear to him are murdered. He asks a local farmer to teach him better techniques so that he can have his revenge.

Bruce Leung played the young fighter who acted and spoke before he thought. I find this type of character highly annoying and never did warm up to Ah Lang. When the lead character’s gross incompetence led to the deaths of those around him and then he self-righteously sought to avenge them, the first person to have been punished should have been him. Two of the villains played by Chan Lau and Lam Hak Ming were overexaggerated caricatures. Bolo played a third villain wearing a matching hairstyle with the Big Bad, Phillip Ko Fei. Chiang Cheng played Ah Lang’s third martial arts teacher and the only one to survive. There was the requisite training montage after the baddies handed Ah Lang his butt. The fights were all of the rhythmic dance kung fu style but faster than most from this time period. The final fight between Leung and Ko was the best. The imagery and dialogue centered on Ah Lang’s Crane style.

The only version I could find was badly cropped and dubbed. I could have used English subtitles for the English dubbing. Between the degraded sound issues and one dubber’s weird New York gangster accent I had trouble understanding them.

The Fists, the Kicks, and the Evils was more the Incompetent, the Boring, and the Needs to Keep His Trap Shut so that his friends and family wouldn’t have died. Not horrible, but not worth recommending either. Graded on a curve as always.

27 March 2025

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