Saturday 15 July 2017

Retro Review: Five Superfighters (1979) #Hongkongcinema

Five Superfighters (Tong San ng Foo)
1979
Cast: Austin Wai, Hau Chiu Sing, Tony Lung, Kuan Feng, Wu Yuen Chun
Genre: Martial Arts

Plot: Three martial arts students and their teacher are beaten up badly by a wandering man who proclaims himself a ''corrector of bad Kung Fu''. Determined to avenge their teacher & regain their honour, the three students all go their separate ways to find kung fu masters who will take them as students.






'Super Shaw Bros Showing'

I stumbled upon this rare Cantonese Hong Kong offering from the Shaw Brothers: 5 Superfighters is an action flick that harkens back to the days of traditional Chinese martial arts through kung fu films of the 1950s and 1960s in Hong Kong cinema. Shaw Brothers movies tend to be in the Mandarin dialect but after finding the Cantonese dub with English subtitles, I knew I had to see this one.

This is a fight-filled extravaganza, full of extraordinary kung fu fights on show and moves executed with flair, precision, speed and technical skill. It's non-stop with the fight sequences and of which barely pause for one second. The fluidity in which the moves all flow together is so seamless, and also lightning fast. The plot sees an old master and his 3 apprentices learn kung fu in various forms in order to prepare for their confrontation with an evil bully, who had previously defeated them and to exact their revenge. We get to see each fighter perfecting their own style of kung fu during their training scenes and when they get together to take on their adversary, it's great to watch also. 

In the style of Drunken kung fu fighting, Five Superfighters never lets up from the first minute to the last.

The plot is not much to ponder, but the uttered dialogue maintained my interest, in addition to the good performances. Five Superfighters is in many respects a stupendous old-school style martial arts movie that as basic as both its formula and structure are, as a film, it is also highly entertaining and watchable. 

It may be very lightweight in contrast to the Shaw Brothers previous offerings, but that, along with the Cantonese dubbing, made it even more worthwhile for me. 





Final Verdict

Five Superfighters is, in many ways super, and more so through the incredible kung fu scenes. Highly recommended. 



Overall:


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