Heroes of the east: Kungfu war of the roses

AKA: Challenge of the Ninja

One of the greatest teams in martial arts films has been the director and star of the classic martial arts film 36^th chamber of shoalin. Director Lau Kar Leung and Gordan Liu (two roles in Kill Bill) have teamed up for several of the most classic kung fu films of the shaw brothers era. Eight diagram pole fighter, executioners from shoalin, legendary weapons of china and one of their best team ups is Heroes of the east.

While this team had mistakenly taken on too much comedy in legendary weapons and the the 36^th chamber sequels here the comedy all in the first half actually works. Gordon Liu plays a wigged(one of the few movies where he askews the Skinhead look) martial artist whose father arranges a marriage to a beautiful Japanese woman. At first he’s against it but he concedes and soon discovers his wife is a well rounded Japanese martial artist.

The first problem this marriage has is that Liu’s new wife is a nationalist all about the superiority of Japan’s martial skills. One time after another her very sensitive husband stomps on her puny Japanese skills until she runs home to the waiting arms of a hunky ninja expert played by Yasuaki Kurata. Kurata by the way is best known to modern audiences for his small but important role going toe to toe with a much younger Jet Li in Fist of Legend.

So in strange attempt to save the marriage Liu sends his estranged wife a challenge for a duel claiming that if she can best him once in 10 challenges he will concede that Japanese martial arts are superior. Nothing says love like a 10 level challenge.

This letter is intercepted by our ninja expert and a whole group Japan’s finest experts are so offended that they travel to China to challenge Liu. Ok So as you would expect the Chinese guy takes them on one at a time and you can imagine this would not play in Japan any better than Rambo II would in Vietnam. There is a whole sub-genre of ‘Chinese martial arts are better than Japanese martial arts’ films. My favorite Kung Fu movie of all time is Duel to the Death a 1982 spin on the theme by Chinese ghost story director Ching siu Tung.

The fights are great but you really have to dig movie martial arts challenges because after the plot is established in the first hour the second is just non stop fights. They are good fights and the Ninja expert played Kurata almost steals the show with his dirty Ninja tricks. His crab style fighting is also really cool to watch. You dig it. What separates Heores from the east from other ‘Chinese martial arts are better than Japanese martial arts’ films is the PC ending. Liu gives this speech that is supposed restore the honor of the defeated Japanese in what looks like a lame attempt at soothing the egos of Japan’s movie goers. I’m sure that makes them feel better after one Chinese dude ina wig beats all their countries experts.

Is it worth your two dollars:

Fans of old school martial arts movies should consider this crucial viewing. Certainly fans of the Kill Bill movies would benefit from seeing Gordon Liu and finding out why QT gave him not one but two roles. YES!