Monday, September 28, 2015

Kung Fu Killer aka Kung Fu Jungle aka Last of the Best aka Yi ge ren de wu lin (2014)

When I watched this movie it was called Kung Fu Killer which is good name for what it is. Last of the Best is even better. Wikipedia and IMDB seems to know this as Kung Fu Jungle. That name doesn't make any sense. Kung Fu Killer sounds bit dumb but at least there is a kung fu killer. There is no jungle.

I expected  dumb kung fu action movie because name sounded like it. But for a movie named Kung Fu Killer this had little kung fu action for first ten or fifteen minutes. It skips two potential action scenes and starts action scenes by fight which is questionable from story's point of view. Our hero picks fight in prison to get to talk to detectives.

Hahou Ma is kung fu master who accidentally killed his opponent during a fight. He is in prison when he sees someone targeting other kung fu masters. He promises to help police to find the killer. Movie is detective movie first and kung fu movie second. This is why it skips first two action scenes. While watching skipping felt odd but when action starts there is plenty of it and skipping first two action scenes felt good idea.

There is some pseudo kung fu philosophy but in the end kung fu doesn't matter. Kung fu masters can do what they want if they are good enough. But if they want to live in society they have to have real jobs. Hahou Ma and Killer are only ones without real jobs. Hahou Ma is in jail and Killer lives underground.

Killer is like old time kung fu master who want to show he is the best by challenging other kung fu masters to fight to the death. I thought, did other masters lose because they knew consequences of killing someone and held back. Killer didn't care. For him kung fu was meant for killing.

Overall I liked the movie. It wasn't cheap dumb kung fu movie. Kung fu action was good but not the main thing. There were few good twists. Movie looked really good except couple cgi effects when they were not needed. Most names are bad but the movie is good.

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