User Reviews

DIRTY HO is another film from renowned martial artist Liu Chia-Liang, a quite early effort from the director that dates from 1976. It's another film in the action comedy mould, with Gordon Liu and Wong Yue teaming up as a prince and a thief who get involved in a plot infused with political intrigue. You know the format of these Shaw comedy action films by now: the first half is all plot less broad comedy, while things get gradually more serious in the second half.

It's one of the highest quality looking films I can remember seeing from Shaw in the visual sense, but I was a little disappointed by the lack of story in the early parts. The fight scenes are exemplary, as you'd expect from the director and stars, and the actors are good too, but the film seems to be treading water for a very long time before it starts to pick up. This is the only real criticism I have of it, as everything else is fine.

Wong Yue is charming in a career-making performance and he gets the lion's share of the comedy. Gordon Liu sits back more, which is the nature of his character, and aside from that cheesy moustache he's cool. The usual round of familiar faces fill the supporting cast, including a nice cameo from a typically tough Wang Lung Wei, although I was disappointed that Kara Hui has very little to do. Best of all is the great Lo Lieh as the bad guy, who has some blistering moves come the climax. Inevitably the real star of the show is the director himself, who fills the screen with vivid, expertly-choreographed martial arts. My favourite scene? The set-piece in the windy valley with Liu in the cart, a direct reference to the Japanese LONE WOLF & CUB film series.

Gordon Liu, who bridged the gap between Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, once again takes top billing in a kung fu comedy that showcases some well-conceived martial arts routines. To hide the fact that he's a kung fu master (and a noble on the lam), he manipulates a young woman at one point (in a brothel, if I remember correctly), using her like a puppet to fend off a would-be assailant; during a wine-tasting, he uses teapots and cups to keep his attacker at bay- while still sampling the wine; when he visits an antique dealer, the antiques themselves become defensive weapons even as he assesses their value. He enlists the aid of Wong Yu (the "Dirty Ho" of the title), whose close encounter with a group of gay gung fu men is worth the price of admission (they're called "The Bitters," but "The BitterSweets" would've been more to the point): Wong is almost converted by the Bitters when he samples their wares (...). When Liu is injured and has to take to a wheelchair, Wong takes up the slack- and then we see Liu, the Stephen Hawking of gung fu, mow down a virtual army of assailants en route to a showdown with the dastardly Lo Lieh. An ingrate, Liu literally kicks his young sidekick to the curb when day is done. Some trademarked choreography and plenty of comedy make this one worth a look.

Master Wang (Gordon Liu) is really the eleventh prince of Manchuria in disguise, trying to discover which of the other fourteen heirs to the throne are trying to kill him. He's pretending to be a jewelry dealer which brings him into the world of jewel thief Dirty Ho (Wong Yue). Also, Wang is such a good fighter that he's able to defeat people without ever seeming to be fighting them!

Wang conspires to get Ho to ask him to teach him in the ways of fighting. After Master Wang is injured, he demands that Ho take him on a journey to a ruined city battered by the wind in an astounding segment of this movie.

While so much of this Lau Kar-Leung-directed movie is given to comedy and wine-tasting, the last fights of the film make it worth a watch. It's also a film that subverts the usual master and student story and has a Manchu character as the hero.

DIRTY HO (1979) is an unusual kung fu movie in that its main character has to hide his martial skills for much of the film in order not to give away his identity as the Eleventh Prince, who is set to be named heir to the throne of China. The title refers to a shady character, Ho Chi (played by Wong Yue, not to be confused with Jimmy Wang Yu), a petty thief who becomes sidekick to the Prince, who is operating undercover as a merchant named Wang while trying to determine which of his brothers is trying to have him killed.

Wang is played by Gordon Liu, the colorful star of MASTER KILLER and many other kung fu classics of the 1970s. For many of his scenes here, he has to disguise his kung fu maneuvers while engaged in polite encounters with men who turn out to be his enemies. For instance, while engaging in a wine tasting session at the home of a wine connoisseur (played by Wang Lung Wei), he has to fight off stealthy assassination attempts by the connoisseur and his servant (Hsiao Hou), all while going through the motions of sitting and tasting different wines. Later, at the lavish home of an antiques dealer, Liu has to fight the dealer while ostensibly engaged in examining ancient treasures. Poor Ho has to watch helplessly from outside the house, eager to help his master, but unsure of what is actually going on.

The party scene where Liu first meets-and fights-Ho is particularly ingenious, because he has to manipulate one of the party girls (Kara Hui Ying Hung) and use her arms, legs and the lute she's playing to fight off Ho, to make it look like she's defending him. Liu claims she's his bodyguard and continually praises her kung fu skills, while she's standing in the midst of the action totally bewildered. Eventually, Liu is forced to reveal himself and is seriously injured in a climactic battle. At that point, he is compelled to teach his skills to Ho whom he then works in tandem with for the knockdown, drag-out final battle with the corrupt General Liang (kung fu great Lo Lieh) and his henchmen, who are working for the 4th Prince, one of Liu's brothers.

The staging is very clever and is clearly a noble effort to do something different within the kung fu genre. Director Liu Chia Liang (aka Lau Kar Leung) has mounted a good-looking historical production, with great sets and costumes, filled with encounters that are imaginative and fun to watch. The plot is not very complicated nor is there much of the excitement one normally associates with kung fu movies, but for fans of the genre looking for something distinctive and unpredictable, this is one to savor and enjoy.