A FISTFUL OF TALONS

A FISTFUL OF TALONS
Hongkong, 1983

Directed by Sun Chung

Willy Dozan
Pai Ying
Hwang In Shik

A FISTFUL OF TALONS is a classic kung fu gem featuring charismatic star Billy Chong (KUNG FU ZOMBIE), Hapkido expert Hwang In-shik from THE YOUNG MASTER as lead villain and the action choreography of Robert Tai (THE FIVE VENOMS). It possesses more than enough genre talent in front of and behind the camera to make it worth tracking down.

A hot-headed country bumpkin (Chong) encounters a kung fu master, played by Taiwanese wuxia film veteran Pai Ying, who is on the run from Qing loyalists. After getting into his own trouble with the Qing, Chong leaves his father’s restaurant to become Pai’s student and aid him in fighting the Qing and their fierce Manchurian leader (Hwang).

Where TALONS gets a little more interesting is in its time period which is shortly after the fall of the Qing Dynasty and during the Republican era. Hwang, is plotting to lead a revolt against the government yet first needs to claim an imperial seal from Pai. Thankfully, this overused plot device is given little further attention and instead the film focuses on the famous Manchurian queue (ponytail) that all Qing-era men were required by law to wear. With the dissolution of the Qing Dynasty, so went the queue, a sure sign of treasonous loyalty to the old regime.

Chong and his buddies initially make it their mission to cut off any queues they see on Qing loyalists. This leads to a frantic group fight within a grain barn involving scissors, sickles and lots of severed hair. It draws on a similar scene in Jackie Chan’s DRAGON LORD while displaying early, advanced elements of the dynamic rope and ladders scene that the Yuen Clan choreographed for ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA in 1991.

This scene, with its overhead camera sweeps and exaggerated wire-assisted leaps, sets the kinetic tone for all the action to come. Chong, a balanced screen fighter with strong sparring and leg fighting skills has no trouble leaping right into Tai’s action madness with an assured stance and cocksure attitude.

Chong’s mission is complicated when his efforts to bag a trio of petty thieves for the reward money catches the eye of a village elder and more importantly his spirited daughter (Liu Hao-yi). She ends up following Chong as he fights his way through more Qing fighters to catch up with Pai. Chong receives a rather bland and ill-defined kung fu training course from Pai. They come to her rescue towards the end in what becomes one of the most violent, dramatic and cruel uses of animals in a fight sequence.

(edited from Mark Pollard's review)