Reviewed by: Gaijin84 Date: 10/30/2012 Summary: A young, serious Chan starts on his path... Original version: Special due to it being most likely the first starring role for Jackie Chan, Cub Tiger from Kwangtung is an otherwise mediocre kung fu film with generic themes and plot. Jackie plays Hsiao Hsu, a young man that works as a waiter/delivery boy for his uncle’s noodle shop. There is a local gang that insists on harassing local merchants, but Hsiao fights back and starts to gain a reputation for being quite a fighter. This unfortunately is against the wishes of his step father (Tien Feng), who has raised him since Hsiao’s father’s death at the head of the gang, Lu Chi (Chen Hung-lieh). The plot consists mainly of Hsiao getting in a series of progressively nasty scuffles with the gang until their behaviour is so outrageous that his step father has no choice but to allow Hsiao to unleash all his pent up rage. The results are unsurprisingly devastating for the gang. The original version is quite a serious and dark film, with Lu Chi’s gang attempting to beat, rape and murder their way to controlling the local town through fear. Hsiao’s rage is completely understandable and justifiable by the end of the film. The choreography by Chan, Corey Yuen and others are a step above the typical films of the time, but still does not completely break from the “basher” type of kung fu. You can see glimpses of more intricate, internal-style martial arts in the fighting, but they are few and far between. It probably has more to do with what was expected at the time than a deficiency on the part of the martial arts directing team. As most have said, probably for Chan completists only, although a chance to see Jackie in his early days before finding his path as a kung fu comedy superstar is an interesting one. 5/10 Master with Cracked Fingers edit: This 1979 re-edit and release changes a bit of the storyline and introduces the oft-used Simon Yuen “Master Beggar” character. Instead of Chen Hung-lieh killing Jackie’s father, they have Kwan Yung-Moon’s “Big Boss” as the culprit. They then have Jackie’s character as a young boy being taught martial arts by Simon Yuen as a (frankly borderline pedophile) beggar. The original opening credit sequence is used as the first introduction of Jackie as a teen. Throughout the story, the Master Beggar pops up and gives advice to a faceless Jackie double before the film switches back to its original scenes. There is even a part where they take the forms scene from Drunken Master and insert it as part of the film. No shame! By the end, “Jackie,” conveniently with a blindfold on to conceal the actual actor, fights Kwan in an open plain, the camera pulled back almost 50 yards to again make it difficult to tell the actor apart from Jackie. The film is no improvement over the original, especially with the attempt to make it somewhat comedic. There are entire sub-plots eliminated (Sze-Ma and Gam Lau’s family) as well as plot points changed (Tien Feng’s death). The addition of Dean Shek as the annoying landlord certainly doesn’t help matters either. Kwan is good as the boss and has some nice moves, but it can’t help the movie as a whole. 4/10 Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: cal42 Date: 08/30/2008 Summary: Fascinating for Chan fans. Hell for everybody else The widely held belief of CUB TIGER FROM KWANGTUNG is that some of it was shot, the production ran out of money and the whole thing was abandoned and forgotten about until Jackie became a star, whereby some new (Jackie-less) scenes were filmed to create MASTER WITH CRACKED FINGERS. Jackie Chan himself, it seems, also holds this belief. However, the truth is this film was undeniably completed (it has a beginning, a middle and an end), and watching it now is an eye-opener. This is a pre-NEW FIST OF FURY starring role for Jackie (billed as Chan Yuen Lung – “Yuen Lung” being Sammo Hung’s old opera name) and I’m pretty sure it has no precedent. The film itself is almost immaterial when compared to its historical significance, and that’s just as well as it isn’t that good. Following the template made by THE BIG BOSS, Lung (Chan) stands up to a bunch of local hoodlums but is forbidden to fight by his father. Cue lots of agonising “should I fight, or should I do what my father wants?” internal struggles from the young (and I mean young) star. The script tends towards sentiment and melodrama too much for my liking, and I sometimes felt I was being repeatedly hit on the head by moral dilemma after moral dilemma. But Jackie’s litheness startled me after watching latter-day efforts like THE TUXEDO – he flips, gambols and jumps about all over the place like the star he would become. I hadn’t seen this film before, but I had seen MASTER WITH CRACKED FINGERS. I only saw it once, but rather enjoyed it despite feeling that something wasn’t quite right about it (I don’t think I even twigged that it wasn’t Jackie in the newer material – I was very much a novice at that time). Maybe the extra material added another dimension (well, Yuen Siu-Tin was involved, so it’s possible) but CUB TIGER FROM KWANGTUNG is a very forgettable entry in the genre if judged on its own merits. But if you’re a Chan completist like me, you’ll probably find this movie pretty fascinating. Hong Kong movie information is hard to substantiate, but I think this was made around the time of NOT SCARED TO DIE and POLICE WOMAN(actually, this film has the same director as the latter) but Chan had relatively minor roles in those films. Even though the movie is less than stellar, the moves and a little of Chan’s impish humour is there. If you’re new to Jackie Chan, get his better films first (anything made between 1978 and 1991 would be a good bet), but if you’ve explored his Lo Wei films and want to know where it really all began, then this is a must. No review of the film is complete without at least mentioning the state the film’s actually in. Even at its best, the picture quality is pretty rough, and the print has severe wear to it. The screen is cropped (I don’t know why) and this has resulted in the obliteration of some of the original subtitles. To get around this, the option of watching the film with “extra subtitles” is given on the Rarescope DVD – remastered, removable subs that appear every time the originals are at least partially obscured by the cropping. It’s a nice touch (I know a lot of companies wouldn’t have bothered) but it can be a little distracting for the eye to keep switching between two sets of subtitles – especially when you can still read the original text and the remastered subs say something quite different! Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 07/16/2008 Summary: 6/10 actually quite good Glad I waited to see the original version of this, not the by all accounts ill-conceived re-edit from the late 1970's. The story is unoriginal and has some serious lapses of logic and plausibility, but as long as you're not too fussy about these things it's quite an entertaining film thanks to Jackie's performance. His acting isn't brilliant but his charisma is already apparent, and his physicality is completely compelling. It's a real shame audiences didn't warm to him here, as he already shows his own style that's a lot more acrobatic and yet also more 'real' than Bruce Lee or his clones, and a pleasure to watch. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: Masterofoneinchpunch Date: 02/28/2008 Summary: "The little bastard likes fighting!" Contrary to popular belief and even in contrast to Jackie Chan and many other sources, “Cub Tiger From Kwang Tung” (aka Little Tiger of Canton) was finished and even had a small release (probably around 1973 or 1974, I currently cannot find exact details) though it was filmed a few years earlier in 1971, done a little before his stunt work in “Fist of Fury”. Chan was given an opportunity to star in this movie by his “biggest sister” from his Peking Opera youth whom was now an assistant to a film producer. In Chan’s autobiography “I Am Jackie Chan” he has nothing good to say about this experience stating “One night, the director and producer quietly disappeared, taking with them any hope that the movie would be finished.” It is not his first film either, he had done several movies as a child actor in the 60s with “Big and Little Wong Tin-Bar” (1962) being his first appearance in a movie. He looks quite young though and slight of build compared to his later appearances. Jackie Chan (he uses the screen name Chan Yuen Lung using Sammo Hung’s old opera name) portrays Hsiao Hu, an adopted precocious martial art youth who has been brought up by a semi-sadistic foster dad (Tien Feng: Fist of Fury, Young Master) and enjoys sparring with his foster sister Hsiao Lam (Shu Pei-Pei) when he is not working for his Uncle Chiang at Chiang Kee Noodles. Hsiao Hu does not know that his real Dad died absorbing Lu Chi’s aka 3rd Brother (Kwan Chung) “Leg of Doom” (the move sounds good, does not look that impressive though should be named “Leg of Partial Hurt”) so Tien Feng could get away and raise his Hsiao Hu. Meanwhile, back at the noodle shop, a group of ruffians order a plethora of food, yet refuse to pay. Hu’s superior Kung Fu is shown as he destroys them in fighting. Lu Chi just happens to be their boss and this angers him immensely when he finds out. Hu’s foster dad is perturbed by his fighting and tortures him with excess work. At first it is just moving extra pails of water, but after another incident (even though he saved his sister) he is forced to put his hands into broken glass (great dad). Later, he forces Hu to “really” fight his foster sister (later in the film though he states that they were made for each other). Of course, Hu’s foster dad is only trying to prevent him from using his Kung Fu so he won’t be found out by the vengeful Lu Chi (though I do not think this point is ever explicitly said). As in any martial art movie I can only recommend this for Jackie Chan or martial art movie fanatics for completeness. The editing is quite bad and the story is a bit hard to follow leaving lots of floating plot points. The lifted score (I am pretty sure this is not an original piece) is quite annoying as it is repetitively used. The martial art action is decent though, Jackie Chan looks quite better than everyone else and so the pacing is sometimes off in the fights. The finale works as well as it should though the highpoint of the film is the demonstration of skills during the beginning credits where Chan gets to show off his technique and acrobatic skills (the 70’s Jackie films show Chan do more of his Peking Opera background than later films as well as this film shows him pre-eye surgery). The film quality of the Rarescope R1 edition is quite poor with a cropped picture (shown 2:35:1, but a lot of image is missing), burnt-in subtitles that are occasionally replaced by “other” subtitles when the cropping interferes (and that replacement also has typos and grammar mistakes) and copious amounts of damage. Also, the back cover description has many mistakes with its summation of the plot. The funniest is the combo of “his father has forbidden him … from learning the martial arts” and “… killed his father many years before.” Still it is nice to have available in a non-“Master with Cracked Fingers” version shown close to what it originally was. The extras are a hodge-podge of trailers, still gallery and a 6-plus minute questionnaire and answer with Jackie Chan. The still gallery is not too bad with what looks like lobby cards and stills from the movie. The Q and A with Jackie Chan is a shaky camcorder print of Jackie being questioned after a showing of “Rumble in the Bronx” (quick talk about the longer HK cut). So this was probably originally filmed around 1997 in the UK (the year it came out in UK) with other clues such as the accents and he talks quickly about future projects: Police Story 5 (probably talking about New Police Story though that would not come out until 2004), a western story (obviously talking about the future “Shanghai Noon” (2000)), a South African story (“Who Am I” (1998)) and about finishing A Nice Guy (later known as “Mr. Nice Guy”; though filming was done in 1997). Not much is learned from this extra other than a quick mention of the “fireman story” that never came about and audiences that are annoying are ubiquitous. Jackie is asked to perform some moves (which he absolutely hates to be asked to do) and he feigns a previous knee injury though later he can be seen bouncing around without any problems. Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 10/17/2004 Summary: WOW doesnt Jackie chan look young Also know as "master with the cracked fingers" this is your average run of the mill movie with 2 exceptions: The beginning training scenes and comedy are quite funny Jackie Chan fighting blind is something different Apart from these 2 exceptions the movie is nothing more than average 6.25/10

Reviewed by: Takeo Date: 09/06/2003 Summary: I got the original version I got the very original version in DVD released in Japan called "Cub tiger from Kwang Tung" and unlike many people think,this movie actually WAS finished!This version isn't good either but,frankly,the lookalike added version is worse!!! At least in the original version you see only Jackie Chan fighting,not the double.The image quality is very bad,almost black & white,but you can see the "JC style" roots in this movie.Recommended for JC freaks only

Reviewed by: Chungking_Cash Date: 02/03/2003 This was Jackie Chan's (then going by Sammo Hung's opera school name Yuen Lung) first big break after a former colleague got him the lead in a film that was so bad the producers walked off with the footage one night without ever finishing the film. Later [someone] re-edited the existing footage and tacked on a pseudo finale with a Jackie Chan look alike releasing it to the Western market in 1979 as "Master with Cracked Fingers" aka "Snake Fist Fighter" aka "Ten Fingers of Death" aka THIS IS JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST AND ONE OF HIS WORST. Reviewer Score: 2

Reviewed by: DrunkenMonkey Date: 02/10/2002 Summary: An entertaining 70s kung fu flick... "View the beginnings of America's newest action star, Jackie Chan..." True enough. Master With Cracked Fingers, also known as a billion other names including Snake Fist Fighter, is obviously a Bruce Lee imitation, but no doubt a good one. It tells the story of Jacky Chan (Chan) who is taught martial arts secretly at a young age by an old master (Yuen Siu Tien). He later uses the kung fu on a gang of Triads, which angers their boss and results in the death of his father. The martial arts choreography is pretty good, and this film would probably be fondly remembered if not for one major fact: the production company went broke in the production year (either 1971 or 1974). So the film wasn't released until 1978, and by then the entire storyline had been changed. Overall, an entertaining 70s kung fu flick. RATING: 6/10

Reviewed by: Ryoga Date: 12/25/2001 This was never finished so they used look a likes to finish it. The scenes with the real Jackie (who looked like he was 17 or so) are the original parts for the film then they added more with Simon Yuen and Kwan Young Moon. A training scene from Drunken Master was paste into the film also! Might worth a rental if you want to see Jackie when he was still a young teen.

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 12/18/2001 Summary: aka Little Canton Tiger A movie known more as Little Canton Tiger (see Chinese name), was a low budget movie starring Jackie Chan as the main character. This is hard for me to reveiw, as I have never seen the Chinese version, I had to put up with a very badly dubbed English version, I had to take that into consideration when writing up on this. I had to watch it again now, because it was so long ago since I last saw it. Very poor acting and martial arts, the story is that of a boy who wants to learn kung fu, but nobody will teach him, not for free anyway. An old man teaches him (played by the 'drunken' man 'Simon Yuen/Yuen SIu Tin'). Perhaps this could be described as an early Drunken Master movie, not as bad as some movies for low budgets & production skills. Worth seeing I guess, but hard to get the Chinese version. Jackie looks like only about 18 in this, the youngest I think I've seen him in a movie that I can remember clearly. Rating (out of 5): 3