King Boxer a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death

I remember my misspent Saturdays as a kid in the late 70's and early 80's, where I would watch an inordinate amount of time gazing at the boob tube, starting at 6 am, run through my schedule of required cartoons, then breaking for lunch, and finally switching to channel 20 for the early afternoon kung fu theater. I can only remember the ones I did see by watching the dvd reissues of classics like Five Fingers of Death -- images triggering long forgotten memories. Of course, a lot of the charm was that they were dubbed, sometimes badly, but I am surprised in some cases how faithful the dubbing was to the original language -- I guess it depended on the distributer. Anyways, this Shaw Brothers classic came out around '70 or '71, and because of its strong story and innovative on-camera kung fu action, it became a breakthrough film that reached an international audience, paving the way for movies like Enter the Dragon. It also made a star out of Lo Lieh, the hero in this film, who is the lone survivor of a massacre of a school, and sets out for revenge. Along the way he endures the hardships and training that all action star greats must go through -- nothing as exciting as 36 Chambers of Shao Lin, but cool nevertheless. And the famous Iron Palm technique, which came complete with a soundtrack, which sounded like a funky car alarm. Quentin Tarratino used it in Kill Bill, but not to great effect. There is a tournament, and our hero has to win not only for the honor of his new school, but to also win his girl's hand for marriage. And of course there are the usual baddies who try to do everything possible to thwart him from doing so.

I bought the Celestial Pictures' recent remastering of this -- they have bought the rights to the Shaw Bros films, and have been doing an excellent job of restoring this great movie catalog. They are Region 3, however, so you have to have an all region dvd player to see it. Also, they are not dubbed, which may piss off some hard core viewers. I have to say, I don't mind subtitles at all -- yeah, so I read while I watch, but I find it amazing that there are so many people who will not watch a movie because it has subtitles. WTF???? Anyone who has the Five Fingers of Death dvd will have the dubbed version, but picture wise, this is superior. Plus, there are extras, such as background info, filmographies, and trailers. Highly recommended!