The Inheritor of Kung Fu

Rating:
Summary: The best thing about this is Ti Lung!
Review: This DVD is worth buying if you are a Ti Lung fan, which I am. However although he is magnificent, the rest of the movie is not so if you are looking at it for plot development. One of the redeeming quality of this DVD is that there is an audio commentary by Ric Meyers, mostly talking about how how great Ti Lung is/was in other Shaw Brothers movies, but saying that this film seems to be put together hodge podge (which it is). I bought this DVD for no other reason than it was a movie released in the 80's when he was starring in many Shaw brothers films and was at his top form. Until we can get DVDs of his other great works - 5 Shaolin Masters, Avenging Eagle, the Sentimental Swordsman, 10 tigers of Kwangtung, The Kung Fu Instructor, we have to make do with this movie. Ti Lung always has a great presence on the screen and this movie where he plays a total bumpkin is still played by him in his courtly manner, and he still moves beautifully! The plot involves the theft of a very important manuscript and I can't remember what all Ti Lung's part was other than he is a good-hearted but inept fighter until he is taught by a woman on how to fight, and then the movie gets pieced together like a patchwork quilt with all sorts of scenes which I am not sure they are at all related. Nevertheless, it has Ti Lung who is a Wing Chun practitioner in his private life, and you can really see his skill in his precision stops and fluid stance changes. He is graceful and a skilled Chinese Fists practitioner for both fists and weaponry, and that is really nice to see. For example, in many of his Shaw Brothers fims, (but not in this one) you will see him working out a full "kata" or "stance", and you can hear members of the audience calling out the stances (that they may practice in their kungfu society) as they recognise a standard form being displayed in gorgeous perfection by him. Although there are many other practitioners who do "stances" or "fists" in their films, the modern ones artificially speed them up, or add wire work to make it more spectacular (but less real), but it is in these early 1980 films that you will see the whole forms being worked out and being performed in a very straightforward manner. This is why the Shaw Bros. films are in so much demand by practitioners. By the way "Ti" is his last name, and "Lung" (Dragon) is his first name. The Cantonese pronunciation of his name is like "Dick" Loong. The Mandarin pronunciation is more like "Di Loong". Please note, this is NOT a Shaw Bros film, so it is like a "C" grade movie. This is for die-hard Ti Lung fans.