Ma fung gwai kuen

1979 [CN]

Action / Comedy

5
IMDb Rating 5.4/10 10 86 86

Plot summary

Hui Ying-hung, legendary director Chang Cheh's discovery, and the protege of equally legendary director Liu Chia-liang co-stars with Liu's nephew, Liu Chia-yung in this fast-paced, action packed comedy of kung-fu characters. Liu Chia-yung is saved from drug smugglers by Hui Ying-hung, whose godfather is a drunken master and whose leprous godmother is mistress of the fairly off-putting Leprosy Boxing style.

Director

Kei Law Photo
Kei Law

Top cast

Chun Hua Li Photo
Chun Hua Li as Giant Liu
Chia Chun Lun Photo
Chia Chun Lun as Giant Liu's helper
Ti-Ko Chen Photo
Ti-Ko Chen as Tibetan
Chun-Wah Lee Photo
Chun-Wah Lee as Giant Liu
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
862.05 MB
1280*544
Chinese 2.0
NR
us  cn  
25 fps
1 hr 33 min
Seeds ...
1.56 GB
1920*816
Chinese 2.0
NR
us  cn  
25 fps
1 hr 33 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by bob the moo

Overly wacky and hammy, limiting its fun even as a silly comedy (which is all it is)

When young Tieh Chiao San is sent by his dying father to live with a former kung fu colleague in the town, he accidentally gets into trouble when missing with a gang running a snake-oil scam and then getting into a fight with an old drunkard. When Tieh reaches his destination he finds that the snake-oil gang is run by none other than his father's friend. He joins the gang but cannot bring himself to do the bad deeds demanded of him; this continues to the point where he is beaten and left for dead. Luckily he is rescued by the pretty Tsai Chiao and hidden out with her drunk uncle and leprosy suffering aunt as well as a Shaolin temple. Tieh uses his time to learn some new kung fu styles, which is just as well as it is not long till the gang come after him looking to finish the job. I have been enjoying using the festive season to catch up on a lot of films I have been wanting to see, in particular a lot of old Shaw Brothers kung fu movies that I was looking forward to seeing. Generally the standard has been pretty high – much higher than you would expect if your experience of the genre is limited to the "comedy" clips of badly dubbed action delivered out of context. So the dip had to come at some point and for me it hit with Tigress of Shaolin. I was attracted by the title because generally I have noted that the Shaw productions have had strong female roles (and leads at times) and I presumed this would be the case here with the "tigress" of the title but not so. Putting aside my preconceptions I waited to see what the film did and found a comedy where every line is excessively delivered, much humor is crude and basic and the whole thing is given a silly or wacky tone which really needs you to be totally in the mood for it. For me it didn't work as it was too deliberately wacky and not actually funny enough to support how forced it felt.This wasn't helped by my waning interest in the film as so much of it just seemed cobbled together and made up as it went along. Maybe it was just my aging copy, but the film stock looked bad, the colors, costumes and sets were all significantly below the usual standard and even the soundtrack was poor. The cast follow direction to match the material, which is a shame because the direction is not good. Everyone pulls faces and hams it up. There are some nice turns in here but generally the material fails them. The martial arts action is also affected by the comedy hamming, although there are some good sequences if you ignore everything else.All told, Tigress of Shaolin is a poor film. It is overly wacky and hammy in ways it cannot justify with the material. The performances are poor and, although some of the action is good, generally it feels like a hotchpotch of half-baked ideas and no strong hand on the tiller to bring it home.
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Reviewed by Leofwine_draca 7 / 10

Decent Shaw Brothers action comedy

I thought the other reviewers on this site were a little unfair about THE TIGRESS OF SHAOLIN, a 1979 action comedy from the Shaw Brothers stable. It's certainly one of their lesser works, but it retains the gorgeous set design and colourful costumes of the rest of their output, and it features assured fight choreography, a pleasing lightness of touch, and plenty of action and incident.

I enjoyed it thoroughly. A word first, though; the title is something of a misnomer, as the female characters in this film only appear in support (a shame given that Kara Hui is excellent and really lights up the screen whenever she fights). The main character is played by the pleasingly goofy Liu Chia Yung, who plays the usual young buffoonish student type who falls in with a dodgy employer and soon learns the error of his ways when he's beaten up and left for dead in a lake. Thankfully he's taken in by a drunk beggar and the stage is set for revenge.

THE TIGRESS OF SHAOLIN is a lively affair with much to recommend it. The plot is interesting and incorporates plenty of ingredients such as the popular drunken beggar figure, the hot-headed protagonist, the female freedom fighter, and the cruel and merciless villain and his army of supporters. There's a spooky sheen to the climax, set in a graveyard and featuring some fighting styles inspired by the hopping undead! One of the supporting character is a leper which allows for the unusual sight of the hero learning the 11-step 'leper style' of fighting. All of this makes for an impressively intense climax, a fitting end to an above average movie.

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