Jioksibi gwanmun (1980) User Reviews

Goofy costume kung fu film

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 10 November 2017]

North Korean Dragon Lee stars as a young fighter who runs afoul of some bad guys who beat him and poison him, requiring the amputation of one of his legs. After a long period recuperating, and some encouragement from his lady love, he forges a metal prosthetic leg and trains himself back into fighting condition. Then his mission of vengeance can commence.

When this film started and I saw the name Godfrey Ho as director, I expected the worst. Ho was the Hong Kong Ed Wood, responsible for a large number of mind-shattering exercises in bad editing, bad dubbing, and the randomly placed ninja. However, this film manages to be at least competent, and has a few fun touches. I liked one bit when our hero concentrates his kung-fu chi into the palms of his hands, causing them to smoke.

The best part of watching this, though, was the fact that the DVD used the old print that was made for the Sho Kosugi Ninja Theater line of VHS releases from the mid-80's. Kosugi, the most prominent star of ninja films during their 1980's heyday (he starred in Revenge of the Ninja, 9 Deaths of the Ninja, Rage of Honor, and many more), used his cult-status to release a bunch of older, lesser quality martial arts films featuring newly filmed wraparounds (sort of like a kung-fu Elvira) where he demonstrated the use of a different ninja weapon for each film. The Kosugi bits are awkward, stupid, and hilarious. I had completely forgotten about them in the intervening years, but I recall my local video store having most, if not all, of those tapes on the shelf back in the day.

Vintage Campy Kung Fu Fun!

[hayabusa-1 · 7/10 · 28 August 2006]

Champ Against Champ is slowly becoming one of my two favorite old-school over-the-top Kung Fu movies (the other movie being The Unbeaten 28).

What's not to like about this movie? You've got Dragon Lee the most humorous of all the Bruce Lee impersonators. In his journey to protect the ever-overused plot element of a name list, Dragon Lee has his leg amputated and forges a replacement leg out of steel. While campy and humorous enough in it's own right it's really "kicked" up a notch when he fights using the steel leg. The CLANG sound effect is priceless whenever Dragon Lee kicks someone with his metal limb. And when his opponents go flying backwards 50 feet or get kicked up into a high tree branch as a result from the steel kick of fury, you can't help but crack a smile.

We're also treated to supernatural evil hench-woman superbeings! These women can command the mystical force of chi and use it to levitate a man and toss him against the back carven wall of the hideout they occupy. And if that wasn't enough for you, these supernatural femme fatales can also disguise themselves as some of the creepiest Chinese clowns I've ever seen on screen. The carnival scene in this movie sticks with me and stands out in my mind for the sheer eeriness of the music and how creepy the clowns looked (especially the trumpet playing clown). You just KNOW something bad is gonna happen upon hearing the eerie music the trumpeter belts out as those demented clowns with streamers on their heads dance around in a manner that just oozes with insanity, dementia, and wickedness! For the grand finale these women can go from evil clowns to harnessing the power of invisibility, disappearing from sight completely! Our fearsome femme fatales use this effect to wail on Dragon Lee while he can't see them. That is until Dragon Lee remembers he too can channel chi and uses it to make smoke emanate from his hands to smoke out the invisible vixens.

One of the film's villains has red hair with some if braided, giving a very Nordic look to an otherwise Chinese looking man. If anyone ever asks you what a Chinese Viking would look like, you can point to this guy! Another villain uses the old cliché of dressing up like a Buddhist monk and befriending Dragon Lee only to betray him in the next scene. We've seen it before, dozens of times: the Jingasa hat and Monk robes concealing the true identity of the wolf in sheep's clothing. I always enjoy seeing this particular element of trickery used in Kung Fu movies, even if it has been done before.

We're also treated to an amusing quasi-homosexual Innkeeper whose tavern is the frequent backdrop for much of the film. The slightest incidental contact to the wussy Innkeepr knocks him out, or he faints, or maybe both, at any rate it's hilarious. It's also in this Inn that we're treated to a few good kung fu battles, as well as one of the villains calling the old kung fu master a "long haired son of a she-goat". There's nothing like an absurdly dubbed insult to keep a kung fu comedy rolling along.

The Baddass boss villain has his moments too. When he's not playing womanizing games blindfolded or sending his henchman to kill Dragon Lee, our main boss villain seems to be an avid gardener as well. Or so it seems... His potted flowers are actually darts he uses as throwing weapons. Then again I guess it would be hard to grow real flowers in the Batcave-like hideout the main villain uses.

Champ Against Champ is a campy and fun Kung Fu movie. For those that can live without wire-fu and serious dramatic plots, this movie is sure to amuse and entertain.

Funny movie there!

[GOWBTW · 6 September 2011]

"Champ Against Champ" seemed to be a very serious movie at first, but it's got plenty of humor to boot. Dragon Lee plays a martial artist who happens to return from a journey who comes across a ruler who is killing anyone who wants to do him serious harm. All he wants to do is to have a simple life with his bride to be. His fighting skills are beyond compare against anyone until his father is slain and he is later downed with a poison dart that claims his right fighting leg. When the ruler is about to celebrate, he gets a very rude awakening from the Dragon. He may have taken away his fighting leg, but he didn't take away his spirit on the art of fighting. Learning the 18 kicks is amazing, and the villains didn't even stand a chance against him. Everyone who went against him met their demise one kick at a time. I liked the fight scene where the hoop fighter got embarrassed when he got pantsed. What a wimp, and he's chided by the words, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" told by the Dragon. Humor a plenty, and a lot of wonder, this movie is a lot of fun, and I even think Jackie Chan could be a part of this movie as well. 2 out of 5 stars!

A contender for one of the worst

[ckormos1 · 2/10 · 17 November 2016]

Dragon Lee walks through a desolate landscape, minding his own business, and meets a man who has a problem with that so they fight. It is explained that a higher up has ordered Dragon Lee never to return yet he returns. We cut to a tea house and a thug leaves without paying. Cut again back to the higher up. This time he has a problem with a list of names. (Why do people keep making these lists?) Then he adds on about Dragon Lee as if he never said it a few minutes earlier. It's back to the tea house. The guy who ate them out of pork and did not pay is hungry again. There is more talk as we meet Dragon Lee's future bride and the idiot who wrote the list of names. Everything we already know about the story is repeated in this dialog – just in case we missed it.

Dragon Lee made many movies I cannot find including 1976 "Superfist", 1977 "The Magnificent Duo", 1977 "The Last Fist of Fury" (which I do not want), 1978 "The Dragon on Fire", and 1978 "Enter the Deadly Dragon". I have seen him in 1978 "The Magnificent" but it was a minor role. His first movie I reviewed was 1978 "Dragon Lee vs the 5 Brothers" and I rated it average for the year and genre. Dragon Lee was certainly a capable fighter but there were thousands of other capable fighters who never got on film.

The only thing that could have saved this movie would have been excellent fight sequences with Dragon Lee. Many of the fights were poorly choreographed, like the fight against all the women, so he had no chance there. The fairly well choreographed fights were against substandard stunt men or actors with fighting ability. There were also bits of humor tossed in and they just felt out of place and failed to be funny.

The mess that is left is one of those movies you watch to laugh at. I don't care for those movies so my rating is based on the standards of a real martial arts movie and that makes this one way below average. I will say the movie did have one moment - the fire breathing fighter was something memorable. Overall, I can only recommend it for die hard fans of the genre just to watch once so you can mark it off your list and never watch again.

Mad, Bad Kung Fu from Ho & Lai

[El-Stumpo · 8/10 · 11 March 2007]

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.