Guest HwangDi Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Haven't seen it in a long time so the description might be a little fuzzy. I think Gordon Liu might have been the star but I don't know. He had these two companions that followed him. There was this cool late night ninja scene where the ninja guy sneaked in this house (to assassinate someone?) but the hero countered him inside. The battle was pretty cool, both of them had to fight and keep quiet at the same time as not to wake anyone. things kept getting knocked over and they picked em up before hit the ground. That's really all I can remember but that ninja scene is still pretty vivid. So what the heck was this??!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Knockabout Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Fists and Guts With Gordon Liu, Lau Kar Wing and Lee Hoi San, and directed by Lau Kar Wing himself.. Review Don't let the low rating fool you, it's a great movie IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yakuza954 Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Agreed. One of Gordon Liu's best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chen Zhen Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 outside that AWESOME fight in the dark, the really good weapons fight, and the above avg finale, this movie was painful to sit through... i love kung fu comedy, but this film drove me nuts. watch at ur own discretion. gordon liu's best? far far far far far far far from it..id watch pretty much any of his films with Lau Kar Leung...and even his other films with Lau Kar Wing b4 i watch this again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HwangDi Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 I passed the reviews on it cuz of all the low ratings lol, but thanks it is Fists and Guts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yakuza954 Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 outside that AWESOME fight in the dark, the really good weapons fight, and the above avg finale, this movie was painful to sit through... i love kung fu comedy, but this film drove me nuts. watch at ur own discretion. gordon liu's best? far far far far far far far from it..id watch pretty much any of his films with Lau Kar Leung...and even his other films with Lau Kar Wing b4 i watch this again.. Really, what's so annoying about the comedy in Fists and Guts? Most of the comedy in martial arts movies during this era isn't really anything special to begin with, as it mostly involves an old master keeping a wine bottle away from his student or a random run-in at a brothel. Fists and Guts is one of the few I can think of that breaks away from the mold. Examples: 1) Lau Kar Wing dream sequence. Really isn't presented as a dream sequence at first, and presented as a regular part of the movie. Scene involves Lau Kar Wing and Lee Hoi San stealing a bag from a guy. It involves some wires and hanging in trees, and everything goes smooth, just as planned. Immediately after, Lau Kar Wing wakes up from the dream... lol and we see what REALLY happens. Of course, it's the complete opposite. Everything goes wrong, the bad guy escapes from the wires, there's complete disarray, and it eventually leads to an all out brawl involving everyone. Things are never that easy. 2) Lee Hoi san and the Kung Fu Troupe. It starts off with a bunch of guys doing a kung fu performance on the street. It's the usual stuff we're all used to seeing in martial arts movies, involving a lot of props and tricks designed to trick the audience into thinking it's real. Lee Hoi San knows it and grins and remarks to Lau Kar Wing that it's fake and he'll prove it, so right in the middle of one of the peformances involving bricks, he comes in out of nowhere and karate chops the bricks laying on top of the troupe members. A slow motion shot follows of them in utter pain as the bricks really break on them. :lol Props to Lau Kar Wing (the director) for taking a jab at this common cliche in martial arts movies. 3) Leprosy Island. One of my favorite examples of black comedy in a martial arts movie. Lee Hoi San and Lau Kar Wing find themselves stuck on an island with a bunch of people with Leprosy and try their damn best not to get touched. The look on their faces as they try to avoid the infected people is priceless. They try every trick in the book--covering their hands with clothing and using martial arts, acrobatic leaps to try to dodge them, teaming up together to fight them, running away.. but the leoprosy people just keep on coming at them. Eventually there's no alternative but to jump in the ocean and swim away. Note: The faces of these people infected with leprosy are pretty nasty.. and when I saw it with a friend, he had his head down and seemed to be in the middle of a what looked like a combination of barfing in disgust and suffocation from laughter. Good stuff. There's also a bunch of others, including the Gordon Liu scene at the beginning in which the two leads try to beat up Gordon Liu, but instead their house ends up being completely destroyed and they end up homeless. Bummer. I could go on forever.. Anyway, my point is, this movie is one of the best examples of a martial arts movie succesfully mixing in physical comedy and wit to provide good laughs. It dosen't rely on a lot of the repetitive, cliche'd jokes that many of its counterparts in the genre rely on. In that sense, I'd put it up there with The Loot and The Challenger when it comes to kung fu comedy. And it's no slouch in the action department either. The aforementioned fights with Lo Lieh at the end and with the ninja in the dark are some of the best Lau-Kar Leung and Gordon Liu have ever done (Chen Zhen, you even mention a good weapons fight that I don't even remember). But Lo Lieh, in particular, has never looked better. I always felt he came off as slow and stiff in his action roles, but Pops always knew how to bring out the best of him. He goes toe to toe with Gordon Liu at the end, in a fight that has everything from boxing bags, weapons, a chicken kung fu style, to good 'ole open-handed martial arts. When I showed this scene to my film class in high school, this was the one they were most impressed with. I'd also shown them scenes from other martial arts movies, but they always seemed to complain about something, whether it was the sound effects or the fact that the actors seemed like they were purposefully trying not to hit each other. During the final fight in Fists and Guts, they were stone silent and wanted to see it again afterwards. This is what I believe seperates "good" choreography from "great" choreography, and that's the ability make a fight seem like a REAL fight, even to novice viewers like those in my class. Fists and Guts has this kind of choreography, and so do the other best movies from Lau-Kar Leung, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Woo Ping. This combination of comedy + action is what makes Fists and Guts one of the genre's best, in my eyes, and in desperate need of a new dvd remastered version. btw.. the twist for Gordon Liu's character at the end is sure to put a smile on any old school fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Chen Zhen Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 well, its all subjective i guess. i really tried to enjoy that movie, and while i dont hate it, i didnt enjoy it enough to not trade it away. there are only 3 "real" fights in the movie (that leoprosy island doesnt count), which were very good, i'll admit. but everything else outside those 3 fights didnt do anything for me. we've argued this film countlessly in the chatroom and i guess we'll never see eye to eye...i guess the only thing we'll agree on is that the fights are real good. i'll argue that i've seen lo lieh better, but thast irrelevant. not to mention this movie was a huge waste of Lau Kar Wing and Lee Hoi San's abilities...y even feature them if theyre not going to fight? just cuz it "tries something different" doesnt mean its successful. i'd rather see tried and true cliches that work, than innovative crap. well it wasnt completely unsuccessful, but nothing remarkable imo. that leprosy island scene did nothing for me. it had potential, but it wouldve been more interesting as an actual fight. its ur opinion and i respect that, but theres no possible way this movie compares to The Loot or The Challenger in terms of comedy, characters, story, and action. well the action is real good in fist and guts, but the fights in those 2 films are a step above. imo of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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