Maybe because, I am no movie-connoisseur, I wasn’t able to classify of what genre this movie was. As the name suggests, the movie was very enjoyable a two hour kungu fu whamm-bamm . However I wouldn’t recommend you this one, if you were a no-nonsense person, who expects lots of logic and definition. And evry one should excuse me cos , I had typed the review long back but had no time to post it. So I am cutting a long stor short as my frends have already written 2 good reviews.
Story :
Once upon a time in china, during the days of prohibition (Imaginary times of-course), when gangs in top hats and tailored black suits ravaged the cities and made policemen flee into their homes (yea and all this happens in china!!), people living at the ‘pig sty alley’ (a cheap looking condominium) were living in peace.
Their ‘peace’ is characterized by daily hustles with the mean landlady and her drunkard husband. This ‘peace’ comes to and end when two ‘axe gang’ members (actually pretenders) come visiting the alley and quarrel with the barber.
Follows is a scene of what looks like a large scale massacre, but is isn’t ! cos the coolie ( ‘twelve kicks’) can kick off 20 men in 10 seconds ! when things get kind of - unmanageable, the tailor ( who used to be teased for his feminine behaviour) joins the coolie as ‘Iron Fist’ and so does ‘Hexagon Staff’ the noodle cook. The trio bash up the ‘axe gang’ and stand tall amidst the ruins. ( the above stunt sequence is a well painted picture).
The axe gang boss ‘brother sum (or som whatever)’ then hires the world’s top (second best actually J) killers – A duo with a weird stringed instrument and music that they say wrenches the soul. In the next few minutes of film ‘Twelve Kicks’ drops down dead – The Trio are no match for the Duo.
When the singing brothers are about to kill ‘Hex Staff.’ another Kung fu master intervenes !! it’s the landlord ! and its his foul tempered wife another master !!
The rest is not just non stop kung-fu. The petty crooks who had actually started the hustle are actually inducted in to the axe gang to release the number-one killer in the whole world – the beast. The beast is more than a match for the landlord and his wife. And the an unexpected turn of events Stephen Chow – the petty thief ( I forgot his name in da movie) teams up with good against evil. After a sweet flashback with an ice cream seller (girl), the bash-up starts again.
The movie is a martial art piece sketched in fantasy-land along with a little humor.