Hu tu san xia ke (1978) User Reviews

Tofu sellers learn martial arts from torn pages of a book and save the street vendors

[ckormos1 · 6/10 · 12 February 2016]

Three tofu (bean curd) sellers are harassed by the protection gang. They inherit a kung fu manual that is missing many pages. They decide to fake the missing parts and become three swords men. They go back to the market and defeat the protection gang. There is a contest for a job for 10,000 taels as an escort. They win the job. They are to escort the lovely Woo Gam – cue the sexy saxophone solo. They are actually bodyguards for her chastity as she is a nymphomaniac. Near the end there is a plot twist. Something about she was forced into an arranged marriage so her father could obtain some special pass that gives him command over the other clans. I never understood why even in Dumas's work though a musketeer is a soldier with a musket (an early type of gun) the three titular characters use swords. Same thing in this movie – there is no Shaolin martial arts, there are no muskets, there aren't even swords. The movie has a hard title of "The Three Swords Men". The comedy concept of this movie probably looked good on paper but the delivery fell short. The funny kung fu was not well choreographed. That is something that can only be done by the very best martial arts directors. Lo Lieh and Beardie also appear in short roles. Lo Lieh had excellent comedic acting skills and I wish he had played more comedic roles. The copy I obtained was suitable for viewing only on a cell phone. It was a terrible VHS conversion that was warped plus in addition to the usual side cropping there was also cropping to the top and often the actors had no heads. Overall it was amusing enough for the short 84 minute runtime but I can't rate it any higher than just average for fans of the genre. If you are not a fan of these movies then don't even bother.

More like the 3 Shaolin Stooges...

[purrmonsta · 3/10 · 15 February 2012]

This is more like the 3 Stooges, silliness abounds with Kung Fu action lightly interspersed, and the action is not so interesting nor filmed well enough to enjoy. The acting is slapstick-style and exaggerated, not the quality you might find in more recent films or better films of the era. The plot is nearly incomprehensible with incomplete subtitles that look like somebody was going to come back and finish them later but never got around to it. That's frustrating, and not what we really look for when we want to be entertained and enjoy a movie. Even by the standards of the genre, this isn't worth the effort. Only watch if you have nothing better to do, there are SOOOO many better than this available to watch...re-watch Enter the Dragon, or anything with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Wang Yu, Sho Kosugi, Shntaro Katsu, or Donnie Yen instead.