Magnificent Butcher (1979)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Jing Wong
Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping
Starring Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Wei Pai, Lee Hoi-san, and Kwan Tak-Hing

Features:

• Music video featuring Sammo Hung
  
• Photo gallery and bios on Woo-Ping and Hung
  
• Movie stills
  
• New and original trailers
  
• Original promotional materials
  
• Production notes
  

Released by: Fox
Region: 1
Rating: PG-13 (originally NR)
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Own it, kung fu fans.

Butcher Wing (Hung) has fallen afoul of a rival kung fu school, through little fault of his own. Nonetheless, his master, the legendary Wong Fei-hung (Tak-Hing) disciplines him and makes him promise to remain out of trouble while he goes away on a trip. But Master Ko (Hoi-san) of the Five Dragons school has no intention of letting sleeping dogs lie. Despite the fact that Wing rescues Ko's son Kao Da-hoi (Biao) from mob justice (unwittingly, of course), Da-hoi has it in for the amiable bumbler, and frames him for the murder of Ko's daughter (his own half-sister, played by Wei Pai). Tensions escalate, and Butcher Wing has to get some serious training from a talented wandering drunk before setting forth to clear his name by defeating both Da-hoi and Master Ko in kung fu combat.

Magnificent Butcher is a kung fu cinema classic. It's easily one of Sammo Hung's best early films, and one of Yuen Woo-Ping's earliest directorial efforts, following hot on the heels of his initial success directing Jackie Chan in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. At the same time, it also represents the closing of an era, as it is the penultimate appearance of Kwan Tak-hing in the role that not only made him famous, but put martial arts cinema on the map. Over seventy films feature Tak-hing as legendary kung fu badass Wong Fei-hung, and he will forever be remembered as the definitive portrayal (though Jet Li's recent bid in the Once Upon a Time in China franchise is a solid second place). With all this historical significance, including a sort of symbolic changing of the kung fu guard, it's easy to see why fans and scholars of the genre point to this as an important entry, despite its light-hearted tone.

Beyond this sort of academic significance, the movie is all that a good kung fu flick should be. Labrynthine plot? Check. Serious melodrama and insults to family/school honor? Check. Revenge? Check. Psycho crazy kung fu fight sequences that break furniture? Check. See, there's nothing really missing here. Oh! Mysterious drunken beggar who happens to be badass kung fu master? Check. There's really just not much more to ask of this movie, unless you want it to be something other than a kung fu picture.

Sammo Hung also acts as the action choreographer here, and his talent in that arena is equal to his mad kung fu. The action sequences are clever, fast-paced, and inventive in their use of props and furniture, much like the style that has come to be most associated with Jackie Chan. It bears remembering that Chan and Hung trained together from childhood in Peking Opera. Especially when you realize that Hung is doing everything that Chan can do, only with a good deal more weight around his midsection. To see him flying around the set doing flips and otherwise insane acrobatics, all while sporting a significant paunch, is astounding in its own right.

If you like chop-socky movies in general, this is a must-own. Along with the aforementioned Chan titles, it makes a nice anchor point on the early end of modern-era kung fu movies. Pairing one of the greatest directors and most seminal actors in the genre, the movie delivers non-stop kung fu action at its finest.