Champ Against Champ (1983)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Godfrey Ho

Writer:

Richard Sam (writer)

Genre:

Action

Plot Keywords:

Martial Arts

Cast

Gene Chan
Charlie Han
Bettrice Lau
Dragon Lee
Antonio Sieou
Doris Tsui

Also Known As:

Champ vs. Champ (Australia)

Runtime:

USA:88 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese

Certification:

Australia:M | Canada:AA (Ontario)

Mad, Bad Kung Fu from Ho & Lai

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Before his disastrous and seemingly limitless "Ninja" series, Godfrey Ho and producer Joseph Lai had jumped on the Brucesploitation bandwagon with a string of chop sockeys starring their protégé Dragon Lee. Champ Against Champ from 1983 is a classic example of Ho and Lai's mad, BAD kung fu with Dragon as Lee Wong, an innocent who runs foul of baddie Master Kai. Kai is obsessed with a list of traitors plotting against him, and targets old man Tai, whose daughter Sing is promised to Dragon Lee, as the ringleader.

Tai is captured and tortured by Kai, and Dragon Lee cops a poisoned arrow through the thigh, forcing him to get his leg amputated. This causes him great unhappiness and sexual insecurity, and he hooks up with Master Wai (not to be confused with Master Kai or Tai). The old man with flowing white robe and mustache inspires him with the story of "Steel Leg, the Great Master of the 18 Kicks" - a man who just happens to be Sing's grandfather! Incredibly, she still has the key to his one-legged training room and fake limb instruction manual. At one point during a disco-driven montage, Dragon pulls his new metal leg out of a bucket of water and asks Sing her opinion. "Ooooh. It's really good," she replies in a schoolgirl voice.

One of the Ten Commandments of Bad Kung Fu requires insane dubbing to go with the insane plot machinations. For Champ Against Champ, it seems cheapskates Ho and Lai used a dubbing studio in Hong Kong with local British non-talent, so that the results are almost Pythonesque. Tai is given a Mr Gumby voice, a thug says Master Wai, "You long-haired son of a she-goat!", and classical music plays during a fight scene in a deliberate or otherwise nod to A Clockwork Orange. Intentional comedy relief comes in the form of a henpecked innkeeper with a red nose, and unintentional comedy each time the rest of the cast opens their mouths. "You stinking turd! Rot in hell!" Like the list of Bruce Lee clones, the quotable quotes are without end.

As the plot spirals out of control, Dragon fights a guy who breathes fire, teams up with a guy who's the spitting image of Garry Glitter, and faces a squad of ninja she-bitches with voices like backpackers from Peckham, who can turn invisible or shape-shift into evil looking clowns. In the Battle of the Sexies, featuring sped up footage that makes the girls look like bikini bimbots from the Benny Hill Show, Dragon wins by tying their apron strings together. In the final confrontation with Kai, Dragon appears to have gained magical powers as well as his own sound effect - the metal leg's kick sounds like someone hitting a shopping trolley with a rolling pin. In the "amputee revenge" subgenre, only the Shaw Brothers' Crippled Avengers, in which a guy gets BOTH legs replaced with tin loafers, comes close to the dizzying heights of watching Dragon Lee clanging his way through Champ Against Champ.