During a drug deal at Ayer’s Rock in Australia, a courier (played by a moustachio’d Sammo Hung) is captured. Refusing to talk (in English at any rate), the local cops bring in expert Chinese detective Fang Sing Ling (Jimmy Wang Yu) to make Sammo squeal. He eventually sings after a particularly nasty bout of police brutality and gives the name of “Wilton”, a Martial Arts expert and local crime Kingpin (played by a moustachio’d George Lazenby). Fang then goes on a rampage perusing Wilton by any means necessary.

I have fond memories of a pair of low-budget films by Brian Trenchard-Smith called DAY OF THE PANTHER and STRIKE OF THE PANTHER. I think they were made for TV, but they were quite enjoyable at the time. So I was looking forward to this 70’s nugget starring the recently departed star of the Shaw Brothers studio, “Jimmy” Wang Yu, in his one and only chance at international stardom.

The casting of Wang Yu as the hero (or the elusive “next Bruce Lee”) is an interesting choice. It’s a shame he is quite obviously dubbed by a white man (surely they could have found an Australian Asian to do a better job?) as the voice is terribly unconvincing (I’m not even convinced he’s speaking his Chinese lines). For the life of me, I can’t remember ever hearing his voice for real except in an recent interview, but I’ll bet my last dollar his voice sounds nothing like the deep rumbling timbre given to him here. It’s doubly a shame as if you watch his lips, you can tell is valiantly attempting the language and he was at least NEARLY there.

It’s quite obvious that ENTER THE DRAGON was used as a template for this film (surprise, surprise) as well as the Bond movies. The film starts with a theme tune that sounds as if it was rejected from a Bond film (“Sky High” from obscure British band Jigsaw – and by the way, that’s a bloke on vocals!) but is nevertheless catchy and memorable. What follows is a little less successful though, as the budget really didn’t stretch far enough to achieve the film’s ambitions. Low-budget 70’s productions have their own charm for me, but I found this one kind of teeters between the hokey and the more-or-less competent without really falling into either camp. In other words, it’s too good to be bad and too bad to be good, if you know what I mean.

The main problem I found was that there is hardly any actual Kung Fu in this movie at all. The director seems to have preferred instead to go for a grittier type of street fighting style for the film’s action scenes. Some have actually said that MAN FROM HONG KONG was way ahead of its time because of this. I’d have to disagree as I found some of the fighting looks dated and not at all convincing. Another problem is the pacing – the whole thing could probably have lost about 10 minutes and not been the worse for it. There’s a scene where Wang Yu chases and subdues an assassin that seems to go on about twenty minutes too long. In other scenes, a little trimming would have cut some of the fat off and left the whole a lot better paced.

One thing that seems completely “off” is the portrayal of female characters in this film. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be taken seriously (more about this later), but pretty much every woman is basically there just to have sex with Wang Yu. It’s odd, to say the least. I mean, I know this was shot in the aftermath of the swinging sixties but even so, it just feels...wrong.

It’s not a complete waste of time by any means. It’s always nice to see another nation making action films, and let’s face it, there aren’t that many Australian martial arts films (save for the two PANTHER films mentioned earlier). One thing it has going for it is the film score, which is typically funky and representative of the era. And it DOES have a few good moments in its action scenes (including a couple of decent stunts). Star spotters will no doubt see Yuen Biao in the scene where Wang Yu infiltrates the boss’s school (which manages to be reminiscent of both FIST OF FURY and ENTER THE DRAGON!).

Quite surprising is the presence of one-time Bond George Lazenby (who seems to have made a couple of these “chop-socky” affairs since making the foolish decision that Bond films were on the way out). It is probably a great compliment to Sammo that Lazenby doesn’t seem at all bad at fighting and makes a fairly good show of himself. He is introduced far too late in the film however (when you’d forgotten he was in it!), probably to minimise his fee!

One thing that did puzzle me is the contemporary publicity film included with the DVD. It clearly states that this is a comedy thriller and a James Bond spoof. However, I can’t for the life of me see what was supposed to be funny apart from the character of Morrie Grosse. It does make me think that maybe I might have missed something here and it was a lot subtler than I give it credit for.

An oddity, certainly, and one that should be seen. Just go in with lowered expectations.