Audience Member
Average action. With Donnie and Yuen, I wish there was more fighting. Rare to see Lam Wai as a good guy. Set in WW2. Wu Ma is the circus leader. Irene Wan, Lily Lee are his daughter. Lam Wai & Yuen Biao beat up loan sharks who come to find another performer. That guy run off and Yuen replace him for flying trapeze. The Japanese bomb the area and the circus destroy. They use circus style to illegally board the ship. Wu mainland house is burnt. Yuen go find his uncle for help but his shop is sold to Ken Lo. All secretly do street performance hiding from Wu. Gangster came to collect money and Yuen fight them. Donnie Yen is the local police and want to catch them. Irene came to plead and diffuse the situation. Ken work with Caucasian thug Bey Logan and police commissioner to sell opium. The baddies trick Yuen to save his uncle but is make use him to rescue their counterpart. Donnie catch Yuen. Irene bail him out. Her fellow kid student steal food and Donnie caught them. Irene save them again. Wu is angry they steal food and want to return it. His old circus partner/lover Yue happen to be the owner of a boat. She treat them dinner and find them a proper home. She also ask people to sponsor them restart the circus. The police raid the factory for illegal activity. The guy that trick Yuen is at the factory. Yuen & Wu beat him up. Ken appear and fire them both. The baddies go to find Yuen but is handle by the kids. Lily keep wanting to venture out on her own. Lam volunteer to try out a new factory drug for more money. He finally get a dressing table for her but she left with a letter. Yuen sneak in the factory and found crates of weapons. Ken force Yue to her boat for drug deal. They hold Yue hostage and Donnie and gang came, caught Ken girlfriend. Lam is addict to the drug. The commissioner order Donnie to release the girl and catch Yuen. Lam want to steal more drugs and beat up badly. Lily return home but he is dead. The gang go to the factory to seek revenge. Ken vs Yuen and the former display his powerful kicks. Donnie save Irene from Logan and defeat him. Ken strangle Yuen but he fell to fire pit and die. Yue burn her boat and crash it to the factory. They restart the circus a year later.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
When the Japanese invade China, a circus family tries to regain their livelihood but get involved in corruption and villainy. When the villains go to far and kill one their own, they storm to the factory to fight for their rights.
The story is pretty standard, its one of those harsh times like story where getting your next meal or finding solid work is difficult.
Yuen Biao shows his acrobatic skills throughout, and especially at the end with a fight similar to the one in "Drunken Master 2". Yuen Biao fights Ken Lo in a factory.
The final fight scenes make this worth seeing, even though it ends abruptly. Donnie Yen also stars as a tough and unrelenting cop on their side.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is a film that almost makes it, but falls short due to some faults in direction and screenplay. Firstly, it must be said that the film starts off a little strangely, and has a mixed introduction between some brilliant, well, circus-routines, and almost hurried character introductions. It was a little hard to keep up with things to begin with. But, once the film settles, it goes about taking us along with a misfit group of circus performers, who, outside of the circus, fail to fit in smoothly with the rest of the population. These difficulties are compounded by the Japanese bombings during the second world war.
Yuen Biao, a trapeze artist within this group, is also an accomplished martial artist, and through various underworld dealings, he is forced to indulge in thee skills quite often. Unfortunately for him, Donnie Yen (the police superintendent) is quite often there to stop him. There are some nice mini action scenes between these two practitioners - you just need to be a little more patient than usual.
Wu Ma is the father figure, the ringleader of both the circus and the family group. His values are quite old-world, and he refuses to trade honour for pure survival - a scene where he forces the children to return stolen food is pivotal.
Although the film has a certain charm, there is a problem somewhere. I'm not sure if it's in the pacing of the scenes, or the attempt at resolving the many character ambitions, but, towards the end, a most of the detail has been lost, and we are faced with a pretty respectable string of action sequences. Yuen Biao is more of a brawler in this film, and his crisp clean kicks and flips are absent. In their place, there is more of a scrambling urgent style, (I think of some of the Dragonlord fighting when I remember this film). Donnie Yen seems criminally underused, and Bey Logan, the British writer/actor has a few scenes to show his physicality, and, he's not too bad.
The balance between the dramatic and action elements is a little uneven, and it seems that maybe too much was aimed for, the price being a drop in quality in all areas. However, do not think that this film is forgettable as it does do some things well. The set design, cinematography and performances are pretty solid. It's just a shame that there was less of a coherent culmination of the elements.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Awesome high-flying, death-defying action adventure and funny of the circus family. Yuen Biao is incredible as an aerobatic hero faces off against the ultimate bad guys and Donnie Yen is just fine as a supporting actor in this HK movie.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
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