The Victim (1980)
Director: Sammo Hung
Cast:
Cast:
Plot: Chan Rong (Sammo Hung) is a happy go lucky traveller. His only love in life is martial arts and his desire is to find someone good enough to be his teacher. Determined to be the perfect student he searches everywhere he goes, but all his prospective masters fall short, until he meets Lung Chun Yao (Leung Kar Yan). The only problem with Chan Rong’s plan is that Lung Chun Yao is just not interested in being anyone’s master. The harder Chan tries, the more Lung is determined to rid himself of his unwanted student. Things take a dramatic turn when Chan discovers that Lung is the victim of a jealous vendetta by his adopted brother Jo Wing (Chang Yi) over Chan’s wife Yoo Yi (Fanny Wang) and the two must work together against a group of fighters who are out to kill Lung.
Review: Once again we have Sammo Hung at the helm of a martial arts film that manages to mix action, comedy and drama to superb effect. Taking on the three roles of directing, acting and action choreographing we have in “The Victim” a movie that effortlessly shows that the always versatile Hung Kam Bo can multi task without short changing any of his many tasks. It is so easy to praise Sammo for his multiple efforts, but when all is said and done this film really belongs to Leung Kar Yan.
Leung Kar Yan is not a trained martial artist. His background is purely one of drama training and incredible mimicry, yet over a period of time he managed to make a name for himself as a reliable and impressive action star. Starting out as a support player at The Shaw Brothers Studio, he soon became a regular in action roles. This was not the first time he had worked with Sammo, but this is certainly one of his best ever roles that gives him an opportunity to show his acting abilities along with some brilliant martial arts techniques. Admittedly for some of his more acrobatic flips he was doubled by Yuen Biao, who once again assists Sammo with the fight choreography and the stunts, even though he has no acting role in this film, but that said, Leung Kar Yan is as impressive here as any trained veteran of martial arts, with his spectacular and brutal encounter with Chang Yi during the finale easily being a career action highlight. Leung’s scenes with Sammo are also a pleasure to watch filled with witty banter and some excellent physical comedy.
Almost like a film of two contrasting halves, the comedy and the action are seemingly split. There is plenty of action in the first half, but there is a far lighter tone than the more brutal life threatening action that comes later. The comedy element in films from this era is perhaps the one aspect that does not always travel too well for western audiences. For example, Chung Faat’s performance here is very much from the Dean Shek school of comedy. Very broad and overplayed it actually boarders on the annoying. Meanwhile, we have a scene featuring the almost unrecognisable Karl Maka, playing a Shaolin Abbot, that manages to be painfully funny, in every respect. One of the best scenes of humour that also mixes in action comes in the bathhouse, but beware……… these scene are filled with shots of naked men’s bottoms. Thankfully there is enough steam and strategically placed buckets to hide the more intimate parts of the male anatomy. Later, the sight of Sammo Hung made up to look like Dracula is amusing, if not completely misplaced for me, as it comes so close to a powerful tragic scene.
The supporting cast is very good with Fanny Wang worthy of note playing quite a strong female character in a non action role, something quite rare for a Sammo Hung film from this period. Chang Yi does what he does best. With an eye patch that adds considerably to his menacing look, he fills the screen with a sense of evil in every scene. His performance in this film places him into the major league of screen villains, and you just can’t wait until he gets his comeuppance. The only disappointment is the criminally under used Wilson Tong, who turns up as a hired assassin, but then doesn’t really get to do very much outside of one impressive fight scene with Leung Kar Yan. Watch out also for Lam Ching Ying who is in the background a few times as one of Chang Yi’s men. By this time Lam was a regular in Sammo’s films, also contributing greatly to the action scenes as he does on this production.
If I had to level some criticism at this film it would have to be directed at the looseness of the overall story. Certain aspects just don’t hold together well under any scrutiny. One particular niggle for me is the blatantly tagged on comedy ending that not only partly negates the power of the dramatic scenes that have preceded it, but also changes the fate of one of the lead characters with no explanation. But I am probably just being too fussy as the overall effect of this film, despite the flaws, is one of pure unadulterated entertainment. In fact, when it comes to classic old fashioned “old school” kung fu movies, this twisting tale of revenge and family feuds ranks up there with the best of them, especially when it comes to the quality and the quantity of the action. For that reason it remains highly recommended for fight fans, even if you may be left scratching your head in bemusement by the time it ends.
Rating: 4/5
Review by D. M.
Photos by Klara
Photos by Klara
For bigger photos please click on thumbnails
