This is a campy movie at its best, it has visible wires and obvious dummies in places of real people, yet I still love this movie to death. This movie has an abundantful of charm and chemistry, every character, hero or villain, seems to perfect compliments of each other on screen, with the exception of Jet and the very remarkable Xiao Fong Fong, who have way too much chemistry with each other as mother and son--more than Jet and his love interest or Ms. Xiao and her husband. But they pull it off, they're funny. The acting is uniformly great, I could feel the dimensions in the characters, they seem to be a campy exaggeration of real-life people, as opposed to other comicbook-wannabe movies with real-life people tryin their darndest to bring cardboard characters to life (read: Once Upon a Time in China II.)

Speaking of Once Upon a Time in China II, this movie is basically the movie OUATIC2 tries to be. Aside from the blatant message of "CHINESE PEOPLE SHOULD FREAKING STICK TOGETHER" flashing in front of our eyes for about 30 times in OUATIC2, Fong Sai Yuk has a lot of sequences that reminds me of the Wong FeiHung sequel, and most of the time it out-does the Hark Tsui extravaganza.

For example, there's a scene in OUATIC2 where Jet dukes it out with the White Lotus Clan leader and they were tryin to fight without hitting the ground, does they fight on top of tables, men, raftors...etc. Well, what do you know, there's a fight between Jet and Sibelle Hu here with the same concept, except it's much more exuberant because it does not try to be artsy fartsy or anything other than what it actually is: a great kungfu scene.

Or the final fight with between Jet and Donnie Yen in OUATIC2 where Jet uses a big stick against Donnie's little one-- hey guess what? Chiu Man-Chek uses a big stick against Jet here in FSY as well, except they go a little further and actually finished the fight.

There are plenty other ones too, all of them are screaming this: "We are here to finish what Hark Tsui teased you guys with": The cloth-stick battle in OUATIC2 that was cut short by Master Wong's Amazing Wit (hey if my kungfu can't kill you, this splinter will!) was finished by Jet Li beating guards up with a rope here in FSY. Couple of witty wiseass comments Wong didn't crack on Donnie Yen's geekiness was redeemed by Fong SaiYuk's jokes on Vincent Chiu. The stupid dining etiquette scene at the opening in OUATIC2 was much funnier here in Fong Sai Yuk.

A lot of people will insist the two movies are of different sub-genres of kungfu movie, and props to you Einstein, but all I can say is this, I had an amazing time with this one and a so-so time with Hark Tsui's hideous abortion they call Once Upon a Time in China II.
(By the way if you scroll down this page you'll find a review by HKCinema's Dale Whitehouse but that's the wrong movie he's reviewed. He's seen the much inferior Kungfu Cult Master instead. Dale, if you're still with us, WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!)