Reviewed by: ewaffle Date: 02/14/2011 Summary: Dreadful “Fight for Love” runs (on the DVD we watched) one hour and 23 minutes. The outrageous padding necessary to get it to even that modest length that it calls attention to itself—the constant flashbacks, some to scenes that happened just a few minutes before in real time and a few hours before in movie time, become annoying, then ridiculous. There is very little action as such, either of the “action” category, Yuen Biao beating up bad guys, or in the more basic sense, what the actors do while they are onscreen. Li BingBing’s understated beauty, perfectly expressive face and exceptional talent was barely used in “Fight for Love” while Yuen Biao’s unsuitability as a lead dramatic actor was emphasized. The director didn’t help him much. His character’s main flaw was his not so secret drinking—sipping from a silver hip flask when he though no one was looking. Playing a convincing drunk is neither easy nor in Yuen Biao’s repertory. The most egregious example of lazy filmmaking that sinks this movie, though, is the centerpiece of the story, the kid. We are expected to believe that Yuen Biao’s character spends a significant amount of time with the kid over several weeks but has no clue that he is the kid’s father, so it is a shock when he brings the kid to his home and meets his mom. Oops, how embarrassing. Even worse are the relative ages of the kid and his parents. Yuen Biao’s character has certainly lost the bloom of youth—he seems to have stumbled into (at least) early middle age. We discover in a flashback (how else in “Fight for Love”) that the coupling that produced the kid took place when the principals were much younger—early twenties at the oldest is my best guess. Based solely on what we seen on the screen—always a good idea since there isn’t any other basis to judge something in a movie—there would be at least fifteen years between the kid’s conception and his encounter with Yuen Biao. Since he is on a pre-school/first grade level, once the big reveal occurs everything after that is ridiculous including a character dying of cancer and another pining from unrequited love. Sometimes movies are ruined during editing; while a viewer can’t tell what is missing it is clear that something important was cut out. This is the opposite case: so many extraneous scenes were added that the viewer is given too much time to think about the sloppiness of the film. Too many things wrong with “Fight for Love” to make it worth seeking out. Two points due only to Li BingBing and YoYo Mung having significant time onscreen. Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: wblaik Date: 12/31/2007 Summary: Yuen Biao, the Action Actor. Fight for Love is an enjoyable drama with nice sentiment, and is light on action. However Yuen Biao still shows off some lovely Wing Chun elements in the choreography, taking on several thugs early on. Don't expect an action based movie, Fight for Love is not it. If you enjoy a more light weight style of drama, and seeing Yuen Biao for his acting skills too, then I'd say it's worth a look. Nicely filmed and lit, this isn't one of those awful shot-on-video productions but in fact a story with real heart and some nice natural acting. Tho slightly confusing in continuity and obviously made on a budget, Fight for Love was a refreshing change to the current sterile trend of filmmaking in HK. Recommended to Yuen Biao fans and those with an open mind to a touching drama story line. P.S. Get the Tai Seng DVD for English subtitles if you need them. :) Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 09/29/2007 One doesn't expect much from Hong Kong productions nowadays. But have we gotten to the point that expecting good action and a decent story in a Yuen Biao film is an exercise in futility? If the clunker Fight for Love is any indication, the answer is sadly "yes". In the movie, Yuen plays a kung fu instructor who has attracted the attention of a young music teacher (Lee Bing-Bing), who wants him to teach martial arts to one of her pupils. The two begin a bit of a romance, but it has to be put on hold, as Yuen as still dealing with demons from his past, as his former best friend was the one that ended up marrying his childhood sweetheart (Yoyo Mung). This doesn't sound like your usual action movie plot, and I'd be fine with that if anyone involved with this picture could act. Actually, they don't do too bad of a job, but one gets the sense that the actors were really doing this more for a paycheck than anything else. The same cannot be said for the kid actor in this movie. He made me want to jab needles into my eardrums every time he spoke, and soon had me wishing for the halycon days of that brat from Rumble in the Bronx. The extremely poor script doesn't help matters any, either. This is the type of movie that uses a lot of musical montages to pad its' running time. It even goes so far as to use the stupid "flashback within a flashback" device -- of footage we just saw minutes ago. I know good screenwriters are getting hard to find in Hong Kong these days, but this was ridiculous. There is a very little bit of action thrown in, and it's what saves Fight for Love from coming across even worse than it does. But frankly, given how crappily the dramatic scenes are done here, even action stuff on the level of Drunken Master II or Hard-Boiled couldn't rescue this from the foul depths of B-movie hell that it's firmly entrenched in from the get-go. [review from www.hkfilm.net] Reviewer Score: 2