It starts with street performers doing acrobatics. These performers are good as Olympic gold. A guy lets the dog act out and they run off. Our guy sees who did it and they fight. One dog chases a skinny guy. Ai Chai-Choi, the skinny guy, plays the "Snake King" and Li Kuan-Chang, plays "Dog King". These two argue and then fight, comically. It continues outside where the dogs and snakes fight too. Snakes were definitely killed to film this but in China snakes are on the menu so I assume that was lunch preparation. Nothing showed the dogs harmed.
I first watched this movie about three years ago but lost interest and used fast forward a lot so I did not write a review. I watched it again today in order to post a proper review. I am a hard core fan of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984 and on a mission to view and review every one.
This is a martial arts comedy produced by a small company. Only Tien Yeh and the two "king" characters were established actors with over 100 credits. Comedy is subjective and I did not find the movie that funny. The martial arts is just average for that time. The fights were hand to hand, no weapons or improvised props were used. There is the usual extending final fight sequence all done outdoors on that nameless hilltop so often used in these movies. I rate this movie as totally average for the year and genre. I would only recommend it for hard core fans and only because I doubt fans are aware of this one.
My copy is a digital file that plays as wide screen on a HDTV. It has dual Chinese and English subtitles. The video quality is excellent for this format and I suspect the source was a laser disk. So many martial arts movies from the 1970s exist today only as copies made from old VHS tapes. There are many excellent movies that can only be viewed today in 4:3 format with washed out color, scratches, and dropped frames. Here I have an obscure movie that even hard core fans have never heard about, yet it is in excellent condition for the small amount of people in the world today who might actually watch it.
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