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Review:
This is another comedic movie starring Jackie Chan, which sees him battling against the various baddies, to protect the Evergreen Jade, which is an invaluable magic potion. The movie seemed a bit silly because Chan is learning to fight whilst reading the moves and fighting against the baddies and I must admit, I did get confused with who was who after a while. Because of the movies age, you can't fault it for it's authenticity but the Kung Fu wasn't that great. Chans acting wasn't too bad but the silly action scenes, which seemed more like the old Charlie Chaplin movies, did go on forever. The other weird thing about this film, is that the characters seemed too be fighting for no reason and the martial arts scenes did seem a bit slow, for a Jackie Chan movie. There's none of those magnificent stunts that we have grown to love from Chan but there are a few watchable action scenes towards the end. With that aside, the dubbing was quite funny and Chan did stand out from the rest, at such a young age. Average!
Round-Up:
This dated movie was directed by Chi-Hwa Chen who brought you movies like Police Story, Shaolin Wooden Men, 36 Crazy Fists and Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin, which all starred Jackie Chan. He didn't do anything amazing with this film, in terms of originality or new styles but for it's time, he done the best with what he had.ÂÂ
I recommend this movie to people who are into their action/martial arts/comedies starring Jackie Chan, Chung-Erh Lung and Jeong-Nam Kim. 3/10
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
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Jackie Chan Stars In Madcap Martial Arts Film, From King Fu Directors Lo Wei's Film Company. Another Film Made While Contracted To Wei, This One features A Minimal Story & Gives Plenty Of Opportunity's To Show Off Chan's Comedic Acting Ability. This Film Is Really Cheesy And Has A Whole Load Of Really Bad Jokes. This Is Definitely A Case Of You'll Love It Or Hate It, I Love It. This Rare & Hard To Get A Hold Of Film Is A Great Opportunity To See Chan In An Early Comedic Role, Before Mastering His Own Comedic Technique.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
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Half a loaf of Kung Fu tells the story of Jiang (Jackie Chan - or in this case Jacky Chan) and his quest to find a job. With no luck initially, Jiang stumbles across a wanted man. The man has been killed and Jiang cashes in on the bounty whilst posing as the man who killed him (The Whip hero). All kinds of trouble ensues and Jiang ends up learning Kung-Fu on his travels through the help of The Beggar Master. All this comes in handy later on when Jiang must defend a cargo of precious items that have drawn the attention of several clans of bandits.
Learning a martial art and polishing that ability to a high level is a long, hard and enduring process -much like watching this movie. At times I didn't think I would make it out alive. The initial scenes seem to cover a little known love triangle. The marriage of slapstick comedy, martial arts and strobe effects. It seems to be less like the opening of a kung-fu movie and more like experimental cinema.
Those who are familiar with Jackie Chan will know his style well. He is very much a clown with morals and portrays this image throughout his vast filmography. With this movie we are at the start of his career and are in many ways watching that style form. The polished performances he has delivered in movies like Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon and the like are years ahead of what we see in Half a Loaf.
I must add that although this is before Jackie fully mastered his style and craft we are actually after some of his greatest physical displays. I personally much prefer Snake in the Eagles Shadow and Drunken Master to anything else he has done. The demanding training scenes and displays of martial arts are of a much higher standard. Although comedy has been a big part of everything Jackie has done I feel that Half a Loaf was released at a transitional time for Jackie Chan. His name was certainly still developing. From Chan Yuan Lung to Ching Yun to Chen Yuan Lung to Chen Yuen Lung to Jacky Chan and back to Chen Yuan-lung and so on and so on before finally settling on Jackie Chan around 1982 - 3 with Dragon Lord and Winners & Sinners.
While we are on the subject of humour the comedy seen in Half a Loaf isn't funny at all but rather painfully lame. I must admit that I laughed at the Popeye scene but for all the wrong reasons. It comes at an unexpected moment and I can't believe it made the final cut.
The fight scenes and all martial arts in the film are less than impressive, but you have to really concentrate to notice this as you will probably be too preoccupied with the poor and very amateur filming and cinematography.
I think I can summarise the whole movie as a mathematical sum:
Martial Arts + Laurel and Hardy - all humour x Amateur Video = Half a loaf of Kung-Fu
I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone unless they are interested to see some of Jackie Chan's earlier less memorable work and believe you, me there are enough fanatics out there to watch this movie 'til the DVD runs dry just because Jackie Chan is on screen. He is an amazing, much loved and very popular man and rightly so, but I can't help but feel the contrary about this film.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
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A cartoonish chopsocky intended as a send-up of the genre starring Jackie Chan as a stray with only a rudimentary understanding of the arts that he over compensates with rambunctious acrobatics.
Growing tired of the persistent pestering for more creative input and frustrated by the consecutive lack of revenue from their half-dozen collaborations producer Lo Wei once again summoned Chen Chi Hwa to babysit Lo's would-be Bruce Lee.
Where their proceeding endeavor ("Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin") acted as the gestation for Chan's astonishing physicality and unique impromptu fighting style "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" gave birth to Chan's predetermined on-screen persona: the clown prince of kung fu.
From the film's start -- a parody of the martial arts demos often seen during the opening credit crawls of old school kung fu flicks -- "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" is meant as a joke and Chan has since admitted as much but is it a good one?
That, again, depends on your threshold for the Cantonese's predilection towards camp in their humor but it's hard to argue "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" doesn't at least deliver on its promise of said martial art here competitively choreographed by Chan and of which there is an abundance.
Nevertheless, at least one person in particular was unamused by Chan's innovation Producing from afar Lo Wei wasn't privy to the film's details but once he screened "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" he immediately had it shelved. The hotheaded filmmaker's conflict-resolve was "Spiritual Kung Fu" (1978) a tasteless kung fu-comedy with Lo at the helm that at a certain point finds Jackie Chan urinating on a group of miniature spirits.
Through a court ruling Lo maintained rights to "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" and released it during the summer of 1980 in the wake of "The Young Master" Chan's first picture for Golden Harvest Studios where the up-and-coming martial artist fled following his breach of contract with the triad-connected Lo Wei Filming Company.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
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11/09/2010 (LAPTOP/DVD)<br/><br/>"Jackie Chan's" first attempt that was canned because traditional Chinese heroes were usually staunch, in this movie the star is a clown who manages to waste all the staunch dudes by fluke.<br/><br/>This is technically the beginning of "Jackie Chan's" style he created in the martial-art genre which may of not got the props back then but is now a legendary trademark of "Chan's" work. It's not the best, but it is interesting for me to see where the kung-fu comedy fusion began.<br/><br/>It is full of comedy and skillful Martial-art sequences that are very entertaining to watch and the story is some-what okay I guess but all in all it's not that bad. I watched this purely for appreciation and may not be for you.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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[b]Dog Star Man[/b] - Another one of those delightful experimental shorts, except by "delightful" I mean "literally hard to watch". It's supposed to be a film about vision, whatever the hell that means. All I know is, halfway through I needed to give my eyes a rest from just looking at it. 2/10.
[b]Street of Crocodiles[/b] - An interesting animated short by the Quay brothers, whose work has apparently influenced some Tool videos. There are some really cool visuals (especially the screws unscrewing themselves) but that's about it. 5/10.
[b]The City of Lost Children[/b] was co-directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, so you know you're in for something special. And indeed, this is a very brilliant movie. The titular grimy port town is the most atmospheric city I've seen since [b]Dark City[/b]. The supporting cast is memorable - the evil "cyclopses", whose electronic eyewear leads to one of the best deaths ever; Uncle Irvin, the brain in a fishtank; the cloned brothers (I love those guys); the conjoined twins, and Krank, the old man who steals children for their dreams. Yes, this is truly the stuff of a wonderful dream, but the film has the muddled narrative of a dream, too. Keeping track of things can be a real chore, which is too bad, because it sinks an otherwise delightful movie.
As an experiment, [b]Timecode[/b] is a great success. It's a film done in one take, in real time, and divides the screen into four sections to follow the four storylines, which often intersect. This sounds confusing, but it's surprisingly easy to follow the action from one screen to another (the director also helps by fading out the volume on the three unimportant screens). So I feel obliged to give it some props. As a film, however... that's where everything goes downhill. The story is, frankly, shit. I didn't care about the characters, their relationships, or their troubles. The large cast also makes things hard to follow, as it's hard to introduce everybody and give them a proper set-up. The dialogue was improvised around a basic storyline, and although the actors have credentials (Salma Hayek, Holly Hunter, Stellan Sarsgaard), their improv ability is average at best. The dialogue between Hayek and Jeanne Tripplehorn in their limo is particularly amateur, and almost cringe-inducing. You'd think that a movie like this would keep you on your toes, but I lost interest after an hour. I respect Timecode, but I have no problem in trashing it.
[i]EDIT:[/i] Oooh, I forgot one. I'm sure none of you will care, but I also saw [b]Half a Loaf of Kung Fu[/b], an early Jackie Chan film that I heard of through my film class (don't ask). The plot is paper-thin, but that's to be expected. The fighting is pretty lame until the final battle, which is pretty good. However, how many kung fu movies have you seen that reference [b]Jesus Christ[/b] [b]Superstar[/b]? That's what I thought.
I originally planned on reviewing [b]Do the Right Thing[/b] in this entry, too, but I'm going to have to delay it, as I've discovered that it's going to require a lot more thought than the previous ones. Stay tuned.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
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