Exploitation Nation

Chinese Hercules aka Ma Tou Da Jue Dou (1973)
D. Ta Huang
BCI/Navaro
2.35

“What do we do with these people?”
“We kill them. And dump them.“

That pretty much sums up all of Bolo Yeung’s lines in this early 70’s Kung Fu actionier that is known for staring the muscle bound Chinese action man who starred opposite the great Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon a couple of years prior to this. the only problem is that Bolo is hardly in this movie. He is not even the main villain in Chinese Hercules (that’s the American title!) but a supporting henchman! he doesn’t show up until the halfway point.

Until then we get the story of a skinny martial arts dweeb. We meet him practicing his ass off late at night when the master’s daughter interrupts him. He’s sweating worse than Chris Tucker at a Klan rally. She rather smartly asks him ” you practice, even at night?” She’s pretty smart that girl. They begin to talk and it is clear that he doesn’t like her brother who is also in the martial arts class there. Seems he is some sort of asshole who gives our hero shit.  Since our dude is sweet on this babe they go for a walk and who do they run into? You guessed it, her asshead brother and his cronies. And he aint happy about them being together. And even worse he’s been drinking. Naturally they get into a fight and our hero flips his lid and kills the ninconpoop! So he runs away screaming like a little girl into the night.

Later he is wandering around the beach in a daze all freaked out that he killed a dude, even though the guy was asking for it. So to make up for his sins, he smashes his deadly weapon hands with a huge rock. Flash forward a month and he is in a new town working on the docks carrying bags of rice. He impresses everyone by working extra hard, sometimes carrying two bags at a time (that shit will catch up to him when he gets older!) When a couple of hungry thieves are caught stealing and are being publicly beaten he steps in and buys their punishment with his whole months pay. But the foreman is, you guessed it, an asshole, and decides he must be beaten to pay up for all the shit these kids have stolen in the past too. The other employees try to step in but at the threat of their pay they stand down. Then the owner shows up and all hell breaks loose until our hero is righteously whooped but good.

Turns out that the owner has turned over the port to drug pushers (one guy looks like the Chinese Robert Goulay) who want the unionized workers off the docks so they can take over the port to get their drugs. Suddenly its like Hoffa with Martial Arts. Notice I’ve not mentioned the hero doing any fighting since the beginning of the movie. Cause he hasn’t. he has taken the Ghandi like vow of non-violence because of his guilt ridden conscience. so even when his friends are getting the shit kicked out of them. even once the bad guys bring in Bolo Yeung and he KILLS almost half of the remaining cast, he sticks to his guns. When Bolo is murdering all his friends our hero is hiding out in a shack being all angsty and somehow we are supposed to feel bad for him. when his girlfriend whose brother he killed finds him, even she is wiling to fight the bad guys, and he still doesn’t stand up! This little wastrel doesn’t stand up to the Chinese Hercules until the very final few minutes!

Thankfully the final showdown is pretty good. I was glad to see it wasn’t all just martial arts, as they used things like big rocks, metal barrels, pieces of woods, and that the Robert Goulay pulled his trusted dirty trick of flicking a cigarette butt into the good guy’s eye. I’m a big fan of fights where they pull in shit from all around them and us it. Has anyone seen the movie The Challenge with Scott Glenn from 1982? the final swordfight in that movie is a killer. it takes place in an office building with office furniture staplers and all kinds of shit getting into the mix. Fucking Fantastic!

So anyway Chinese Hercules is the first feature on the double bill in the Exploitation Cinema set from BCI/Navaro with Black Dragon (reviewed a few pages below). Unlike the print used for Black Dragon which was simply a fucking mess, this one is not too bad. It is scratched and splicy in places, but it is letterboxed correctly (the first time this title has been available widescreen to my knowledge, and it needed it!). There is no language options, so all we get is the English dub, but it is clear enough with no drop outs (once again unlike Black Dragon which drops out three or four times). The color on the print is a bit pink and could have used some cleaning up but these Exploitation Cinema releases has pretty much become the bargain basement releases. Which is kinda sad.

The trailers on this disc are Sister Streetfighter, Deadly China Doll, Five Fingers of Death, The Streetfighter, Super Chick, and Horror High which is going to be on the next double feature disc released in December sometime.

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