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¤õ«ý·¬ªL´ç (1974)
Duel at Forest


Reviewed by: Gaijin84
Date: 03/01/2009
Summary: Bad choreography mars the movie...

Pai Lung (Man Kong-Lung) returns home from a prison sentence for accidentally killing the father of his girlfriend Snow (Sally Chen). Upon arriving, he finds that Snow has gotten married to the town's gambling addict and all-around loser Chu Hu. The casino in town is being run by a Westerner (Robameice Deimikor) and his band of thugs that keep things running smoothly. Snow's sister (Hsu Feng) does not trust anyone, let alone Pai Lung, and gets in constant fights trying to keep her step-brother out of trouble. Eventually, Pai uncovers a plot by the westerner to cheat Chu out of his house, which unbeknownst to him, sits on top of a gold mine. When the plot goes askew and Chu is killed, Pai and Ms. Chu have revenge on their mind and stop at nothing to exact it.

Although the cast is decent and the plot is somewhat interesting, the action choreography completely sinks Dragon Fury. Hsu Feng seems to do most of the fighting and although she isn't horrendous, she should not be headlining as many of the fights as she does. Man Kong isn't a whole lot better, but he has some decent battles with until now unseen western fighter Robameice Deimikor. To agree with STSH, the problem with the overall choreography is the fact that you can see that almost none of the strikes even come close to connecting. Incredibly weak-looking kicks send opponents flying and punches that miss by several inches still are able to flatten people. After the first few scenes it weighs the movie down too much to recover.

3/10

Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 01/05/2006
Summary: Plenty of fury, but .......

This film is simply not up to the standard you'd expect of such a fine cast. At least at the beginning, the word for the fight scenes is "amateurish". Obviously pulled punches and kicks are numerous, and cringing was my general reaction. Things generally improve as the story wears on, but I had to resort to fast-forwarding a few times to cope.

The acting is, to say the least, melodramatic and the story feverish. Although the good guys and the bad guys are clearly distinguished, I had trouble sympathizing with anyone.

Having said all that, there is plenty of action, and the story moves along at just enough pace to hold some level of interest.

Overall, this one is a case of "disappointing and should have been much better". Below average.

Reviewer Score: 4