The Chinese Stuntman (aka Counter Attack) (1981)

[Killer Meteor]

One of the most clever old school kung fu films, I do feel this gets a bad deal from the text extras on the UK DVD who kiss up to the Bruce Lee legacy nuts by bemoaning the loss of John Ladaski's Jeet Kune Do film, and then go on to call Bruce Li's style "flowery." Judging from the film, if not real life, Ladaski is a clumsy oaf.

The main highlight of the film is Wei Ping-ao as a very Lo Wei-ish director/producer. His performance is extremely funny as he goes from sycophantic to tyrranical to appearing to genuinely care.

The Shan Lung character seems to be based on Jimmy Wang Yu: a good brawler, wonky kung fu style, inexplicably a popular movie star.

More than any other film I can think of, this illustrates how different the Hong Film industry was from various books on Bruce Lee suggest. We see a Hong Kong film industry trying to keep up with Jackie Chan and the modern action pictures, whilst all John Ladaski can think of is Bruce Lee. The impression one would get from a Bruce Lee book is that Hong Kong devoted all its time into searching for the next Bruce Lee.

[mpm74]

Pure classic.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

There's a weird throughline of rather negative commentary on the HK movie bussines to Bruce Li's filmography. New Game Of Death, Exit The Dragon, Enter The Tiger, Chinese Stuntman and perhaps some others.

[Guest Markgway]

There's a weird throughline of rather negative commentary on the HK movie bussines to Bruce Li's filmography. New Game Of Death, Exit The Dragon, Enter The Tiger, Chinese Stuntman and perhaps some others.

Does this make Ho Tsung-Tao some kind of auteur?

[SunChien]

Inosanto looked badass in this one.

[Phoenix]

Does this make Ho Tsung-Tao some kind of auteur?

Some film professor somewhere needs to start up a module on a course ASAP.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Well, auteur is probably strecthing it:smile:

And I doubt very much that Ho Chung Tao had much, if any, influence on the thematic styles of those productions. It was merely an observation:smile:

[TheFlyingPanda]

Classic fun! Allot of action and yes, Inosanto is bad-ass and we get to see him bust moves. Ho Chung Tao did pretty good I think. I'd love to see a remastered crisp print of this movie.

[Black.Dragon]

Great Plot , good movie . Chinese Stuntman is one of Li best films , right next to Edge of Fury .

[Guest Markgway]

Does anyone have an earlier release date for this film than July 15th, 1982?

That's the Dutch release date according to the IMDB.

Apparently film commenced shooting circa 1979/80 so I'm wondering about the delay.

[dionbrother]

The scenes on my Ground Zero dvd with Harold Sakata, IIRC, seem tacked on later, suggesting additional shoots. Could almost swear they weren't in the TWE video but I might be wrong.

[Killer Meteor]

Does anyone have an earlier release date for this film than July 15th, 1982?

That's the Dutch release date according to the IMDB.

Apparently film commenced shooting circa 1979/80 so I'm wondering about the delay.

I wonder...if there is no release date at the HKFA, does that mean there wasn't a HK release, or that they simply don't have a date for it?

I can imagine Chinese Stuntman rustling a few feathers...then again, some things just take their sweet time to get released.

Hammer's Columbia projects often got a UK release a year or two after the US release (Cash On Demand comes to mind), three years in the case of The Old Dark House.

It'd be great to find a catalogue of Taiwanese release dates for old school movies.

[Guest Markgway]

@Dion: Harold Sakata?? I don't recall him being in the film. At least not the version I saw. I also don't have him credited in my notes.

@Meteor: The film was released in Hong Kong in 1984, re-edited and under a new title. I was just wondering where and when original The Chinese Stuntman version was first released.

[dionbrother]

The Sakata footage looked tacked on, and included a sex scene. It was weird because I didn't recall it in the original release, but who knows where George Tan got this version. The film was promoted as COUNTERATTACK in the second issue of Martial Arts Magazine, published in 1981. It didn't mention Sakata in the blurb, and I think Ladalski actually wrote the piece(it's the only issue of that great magazine that I no longer have). Ladalski contributed Asian film production reports to Fighting Stars magazine in the '70s.

[Guest Markgway]

Right. The re-edited version was called Counter Attack. I presume they added the Sakata and sex scenes for that particular edit. The original cut is available (dubbed) in the UK on DVD. There is a Chinese language version too but I don't think it had subs. Not too sure.

[bruceleeclones]

Has anyone got the chinese language version of this movie? Wouldn't mind making a fan project out of it since there is additional footage avaliable.

[Cognoscente]

[Killer Meteor]

On 7/8/2021 at 3:56 PM, Cognoscente said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has somebody airbrushed a wig onto Inosanto in that pic?

[Killer Meteor]

Weirdly, Bruce Li is credited as Ho Chung Tao for acting and direction on this...but the assistant director credit goes to Bruce Le! I assume not The Real Bruce Le, who was a proper star at this point....

[dionbrother]

10 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

Weirdly, Bruce Li is credited as Ho Chung Tao for acting and direction on this...but the assistant director credit goes to Bruce Le! I assume not The Real Bruce Le, who was a proper star at this point....

According to the late John Ladalski, it was THE Bruce Le.  He bought the film from Ho Chung Tao when Ho decided to quit showbiz and did some reshoots.  

[Killer Meteor]

12 minutes ago, dionbrother said:

According to the late John Ladalski, it was THE Bruce Le.  He bought the film from Ho Chung Tao when Ho decided to quit showbiz and did some reshoots.  

Bruce Le's reshoots are, I believe in the COUNTER ATTACK version from 83/84, but so far as I can tell, there is none of that in THE CHINESE STUNTMAN version from 81/82, and yet Le gets the AD credit on that as can be seen on the video transfer. Very odd...

It could possibly be that the "Bruce Le" credit on the original version was meant to be "Bruce Li" as a distributor's sneaky way of getting a Bruce onto the credits somehow.

[dionbrother]

Hard to say, depends on the paper trail.  It's possible Le worked on the first version in some capacity or he bought the first version from Ho and did some reshoots then.  Then did further reshoots/edits when he sold the film to Roy Horan's company that secured the sale to TWE's home video arm.

[AlexanderFu]

I'm watching now. I love these lo-fi movies, the action is killer. It's like looking back in time, very nostalgic.

I could watch these all day. (I watched Kung Fu The invincible Fist also, Chan Wai-man's 1st film I believe. Everyone was great in it. Chen Sing is always so great . He is a bad dude).

[Killer Meteor]

I just released that there is an Inosanto clone in this film - there's a scene where Bruce Li fights some masked men with nunchucks...and their stick-weilding leader is dressed in Inosanto's clothes. The same dressed actor then doubles for Inosanto in one shot during the final battle against Li and Ladaski.