Qin long san shi qi ji (1979) Online

Our guys begin by selling broken pottery as valuable antiques. An injured man bumps into them and they take him to Granny for help. After making some money they go straight to the casino to gamble it away. Granny is a kung fu master and is waiting to punish them for gambling. The next day our guys are doing whatever job they can come up with to make some money on the street. Meanwhile the bad guys are looking for the injured man they gave shelter.

The first time I attempted to watch this movie did not go well. The copy is scratchy and a cropped VHS transfer to digital file. The subtitles are poorly translated and misspelled and cropped along with the picture. The color is good surprisingly. The worst part is the frames that are missing. Many frames are missing and mostly during the fight action. This is the "VideoAsia" DVD coupled with "Revenge of Fury". Because of the physical defects of the only copy available I did not finish watching more than the first thirty minutes. I came back again a few years later and gave it a second try and here is my review.

This is the type of movie that can only be recommended for hard core fans of the genre based on the physical defects I mentioned. To write a fair review I have to put that all aside and rationalize that if it were not for this defective copy the movie would not exist at all. This movie is a kung fu comedy. There are standard things about most kung fu comedies. One is that the physical comedy, particularly the fights, is the really funny stuff. The other comedy, such as the counting coins tends to flop either because of cultural uncomprehensibility or it just was not funny. In this movie the physical comedy is certainly funny, the rest mostly misses. Our two actors, Hui Bat –Liu and Chin Lung have had big roles in mostly comedies. They both have the faces needed for comedy. Their only other work was as stunt men and they have the needed physicality for that also. Their fights and stunts in this movie are top notch. Then there is Chan Wai-Lau the male who plays the granny. He is a small man and has played many female characters simply because he fit the costume. The question is – is he an actor who also happens to be great at stunts or he is a stunt man who also happens to be a great actor? I have searched for further information on him and even his birthday cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless he is excellent at both drama and sports. I recommend "Raining in the Mountain" as an example.

Overall, with the disclaimer that this is only for hard core fans who won't cry because a few hundred feet of film are missing on this scratchy video, I will rate it a good average film of the genre and year.