Home :: DVD :: Action & Adventure :: Science Fiction  

Animal Action
Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem
Blaxploitation
Classics
Comic Action
Crime
Cult Classics
Disaster Films
Espionage
Futuristic
General
Hong Kong Action
Jungle Action
Kids & Teens
Martial Arts
Military & War
Romantic Adventure
Science Fiction

Sea Adventure
Series & Sequels
Superheroes
Swashbucklers
Television
Thrillers
Magnificent Butcher

Magnificent Butcher

List Price: $9.98
Your Price: $9.98
Product Info Reviews

Features:
  • Color
  • Widescreen
  • Dolby


Description:

Fans of The Matrix who exclaimed over the fight sequences staged by Yuen Woo-ping should get a load of what he can do when he's really in his element, deploying classic martial arts moves with an updated body-slamming intensity. In Magnificent Butcher you also get a sketch history of Hong Kong action cinema along the way. The plot is a mishmash about the kidnapping of the daughter of a local merchant; the fun is in the character turns and the electrifying combat scenes. Aging martial arts star Kwan Tak-hing returns to the role of real-life Cantonese nationalist folk hero Wong Fei-hung, a character he owned in the 1950s in a long string of B movies. Sammo Hung stars as Butcher Ah-wing, Wong's number one student, the character played by the even tubbier Kent Cheng in the Once Upon a Time in China series, to Jet Li's upright younger version of Wong. Kwan wisely leaves the hard action to his younger costars, but he does some deft, elegant tricks with furniture and calligraphy brushes, proof positive that he still has all the chops of a kung fu master, everything but the brute strength. (He actually makes mere strength look rather crass.) --David Chute
© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates