This movie begins with a young Chinese man named "Ma Tai Yung" (Jimmy Wang Yu) walking into a small Japanese village in the midst of a festival. Because this festival typically attracts a good number of tourists a small gang of pickpockets have also emerged who are more than willing to separate these visitors from their purses. However, when a few hoodlums try to take the purse belonging to Ma Tai Yung, they get more than they bargained for and are quickly beaten and subdued. Not long afterward, Ma Tai Yung notices that a Komuso monk is following him, and after a while, Ma Tai Yung confronts him. It's at this time that we learn that Ma Tai Yung has come from a small village in China to avenge the death of his family at the hands of some Japanese thugs. It is also disclosed that Ma Tai Yung has developed a hatred for all the people of Japan--for which no amount of reason by this monk can alter. They then go their separate ways with Ma Tai Yung heading back to the village whereupon he bumps into a beautiful woman named "Ying Chu" (Cheung Ching Ching) who skillfully proceeds to snatch his wallet and hand it off to a nearby accomplice before Ma Tai Yung realizes what is going on. When Ma Tai Yung discovers what has happened, he belatedly confronts Ying Chu about it. This results in yet another fight with several more hoodlums which Ma Tai Yung quickly dispatches as well. After this fight, he returns to the task of recovering his wallet--with Ying Chu following him every step of the way. It's then that he realizes that Ying Chu isn't nearly as bad as he once thought, and with her help he also gets closer to finding the people responsible for murdering his family. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an interesting old-style kung fu movie from back in the day which has quite a bit of action yet also manages to convey an underlying message about racism and xenophobia in the process. Additionally, the fact that it had two beautiful actresses in Lan Chi (as "Mao Chi") and the previously mentioned Cheung Ching Chang certainly didn't hurt either. On a separate note, I should probably add that this film goes by several different titles which vary in length, quantity and quality. For example, the VHS tape I bought several years ago under the title of "The Screaming Tiger" is 75 minutes long and leaves out most of the interaction between Ma Tai Yung and Mao Chi. The picture was rather grainy as well. However, there is another version titled "Wang Yu-King of Boxers" which is about 88 minutes long and includes the scenes involving Ma Tai Yung and Mao Chi--but omits the first part of the film explaining the reason Ma Tai Yung is in Japan and his conversation with the Komuso monk. Likewise, it also goes by the titles of "Screaming Ninja" and "Ten Fingers of Steel" which are apparently 101 minutes in length. Be that as it may, while this clearly isn't a top-notch martial arts film in the same category as those starring Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, it wasn't that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.
Review of The Screaming Tiger
