Er long zheng zhu (1974) User Reviews

An above average Sek Kin, a totally average 1970s martial arts movie

[ckormos1 · 5/10 · 10 November 2019]

I first watched this back in 2015 but did not post a review. That was because I was impressed with Sek Kin and wanted to see if my impression held up over time. To clarify the review by ajoyce1va, Sek Kin was actually 60 years old when he made this movie. That is impressive.

Sek Kin was fresh off the set of "Enter the Dragon" (as Mr. Han). He is in jail for a crime he did not commit, like they all say. Cliff Lok really likes to fight. He likes to fight so much he gets sent to prison just to fight Sek Kin. There is a dramatic revelation about the two men.

Cliff Lok's first starring role was in 1972 "A Man Beyond Horizon". Sek Kin also costars in this movie. I also reviewed 1972 "The Roaring Lion". I rated the final fight of Cliff Lok versus Sek Kin as one of the best fights of all time. Cliff Lok was a real Peking opera martial artist and stunt man with top skills back then. Hundreds of other real martial artist/stunt men/acrobats were also crowding movie productions and getting paid about $10/day. Cliff started as a stunt man in 1966 in "The Knight of Knights". He peaked in those two movies with Sek Kin. In 1974 he starred in "Chinese Kung Fu Against Godfather". This was his "European Vacation" movie. A martial arts movie star who did a European vacation movie back then was the equivalent of a rock star doing a Christmas album. In other words - it's all over.

The fights are good in this movie. Sek Kin is very good. He did 16 or more consecutive moves without a cut, used a staff, and almost never used a stunt man. The story line is unrealistic and the characters all one dimensional. The plot twist about the relationship between Sek and Cliff was done with exposition instead of the rule "Show, don't tell".

I recommend this movie for all fans of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984. Despite the recommendation, I still can't rate it more than just average for the year and genre.

TIGER'S CLAW: Cliff Lok aims for the top in average kung fu film

[BrianDanaCamp · 25 October 2004]

TIGER'S CLAW (1974) has a simple, serviceable plot about a wandering kung fu champ, played by Cliff Lok, who seeks out champion fighters so he can fight and beat them purely to satisfy his own egotistical need to know he's the best. When he learns of an elusive fighter called "the Tiger" who is said to be unbeatable, he seeks him out even if it means getting himself arrested after a faked rape attempt staged with his female partner, so he can go to the jail where the Tiger has been imprisoned. To make a long story short, Cliff finds the Tiger (Shih Kien), breaks him out of prison, and takes him home to his foster mother who turns out to be the Tiger's former maid. Tiger refuses to fight and instead seeks out his old sworn brother who had set him up on the murder charge which put him in jail 20 years earlier. The Tiger is tricked by the sworn brother into getting drunk and is about to be killed when Cliff intervenes, solely in the interest of keeping the Tiger alive for their destined bout.

Once one gets past the lengthy prison sequence, the film settles into a steady series of fast and furious well-choreographed hand-to-hand (and stick-to-stick) fight scenes. Cliff Lok, then a rising kung fu star (yet to do such great kung fu films as KUNG FU GENIUS and RING OF DEATH), fights veteran fighting star Shih Kien (best known in the west for his portrayal of the villain Han in ENTER THE DRAGON) in two major fight scenes. The fighting high point is a spectacular brawl in which Cliff takes on a dozen or so henchmen of the Tiger's sworn brother, all of whom are armed with sticks or knives.

Cliff is more intense here than usual, leaving out the humor he displayed in KUNG FU GENIUS and MAD MAD KUNG FU (aka OL' DIRTY KUNG FU), among others. Here he's just a cocky, arrogant, 20-year-old who thinks he's the best there is. The ending is somewhat unsatisfying and comes with a message about not devoting one's life to fighting. But if these characters didn't devote their lives to fighting, there'd be no movie.

The main actors are Cliff and Shih Kien and they do a fine job of carrying the movie. There's a cute actress I can't identify who plays Cliff's classmate and sidekick who travels with him, helps him out of jail and even helps fight at one point. But when Cliff faces the Tiger she begins to fear for his life and her cheerleading fades somewhat.

The film is low-budget and the cinematography not as nice as we'd like, a problem exacerbated by the poor quality full-frame DVD copy of the film that's commercially available. The English dubbing is kind of strange. The actors all sound Asian or Asian-American, but are somewhat inexperienced at voice dubbing. The goal may have been to make the voices more authentic-sounding, but it just calls unnecessary attention to itself. Overall, however, if you're a Cliff Lok completist, you should probably see this.

So pedestrian!

[ajoyce1va · 2/10 · 12 June 2005]

The people involved in this movie didn't listen to Bruce Lee when he said that kung fu action should have emotional content -- not necessarily anger, but something other than a full body dance.

I agree with the earlier comment that the dubbing in this flick is weird -- very slow to keep pace with the original Chinese word flow -- and again, there's not much sign of emotional content.

The photography is nothing special either. This was a very low budget venture, possibly filmed in Macao to judge by the look of the seaside fortifications the two men fight around. There are only ultra-inexpensive special effects, and no attempts to backfill light on the actors when there's no sun on their faces and bright sky behind them. As a result, there's a surprising amount of daytime action that is hardly visible. Camera lenses can only do so much. The producers didn't seem to care, either.

I know this goes against the traditions of the genre, but after 15 or 20 minutes of constant fighting, complete with high kicks, jumps, throws, and so on, shouldn't somebody appear to be out of breath? There are no concessions to reality here.

Still, it's nice to see Shih Kien as a vigorous man in (I'd guess) his late 40's, still being able to handle the demands of the kung fu action.

Bottom line -- don't waste your time or money buying or renting this movie, but if it plays on cable and you don't have anything better to do, it won't hurt to watch it.

Kung fu cheapie with an unpleasant hero

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 30 January 2017]

I thought this kung fu cheapie was pretty dreadful if I'm honest. It was clearly made after the success of ENTER THE DRAGON as it features that film's top villain, Shih Kien, as another antagonist, although the youthful hero is played by the familiar Cliff Lok. I find a lot of these early-to-mid '70s efforts to be pretty brainless viewing and not as much fun as the ones that were being made five or so years later. Budgetary constraints are a big issue with films of this era.

What I hated about SHAOLIN TIGER'S CLAW is the story, which is completely nonsensical. Lok plays a brash young guy who for some reason decides to pick a fight with a master criminal known as the Tiger. The problem is that the Tiger is in prison, so Lok sets up an attempted rape so that he can join him. The prison interlude is the most interesting part of the production. The rest plays out as expected, with the complication of a rival master who commits betrayal and sends a bunch of henchmen out after the main characters. The film only really comes to life at the climax, set at a hilltop fort, but the main character is such a jerk that I didn't like this at all.