Movie Review: Magnificent Butcher

I went into this film not knowing too much about it besides the fact that it was a well-regarded Sammo Hung film. And sure enough, it starred a very young looking Sammo; even though he wasn't too far away from the movies he would make with Jackie Chan, he looked much younger than I was expecting. As the movie started, I was reminded of another movie in terms of tone and design - it took me a while before I came up with Jackie's original Drunken Master as the film I was trying to think of. That movie was filmed the year before, albeit with the same director and crew.

And as soon as I did, the drunken mentor character entered the movie - almost an exact duplicate of the Sam Seed/Su Hua Chi character from Drunken Master (although not apparently the same actor). However, Magnificent Butcher doesn't really turn into a remake - there is no drunken boxing, although there is a drunken rooster - as Sammo's Butcher Wing character doesn't really turn into an unstoppable machine after getting his training, and the training scenes are actually fairly brief in this one - not nearly as much torture for Sammo.

The plot involves a lot of mistaken identity - Wing's long-lost brother and bride show up looking for Wing but instead run into trouble in the form of Ko Tai-Hoi, the prodigal son of a rival school's leader. Ko kidnaps the bride, and then enlists Wing's help against his (as yet unknown) brother. When Wing learns the truth, the brothers team up to rescue the bride, but end up getting involved in a conflict between Ko and his god-sister. Ko kills the sister (in a fairly brutal attempted rape-turned-murder scene for what is otherwise a relatively light-hearted movie), and Wing is framed. Wing must clear himself and fight back for revenge as the body count around Ko continues to grow.

Sammo actually doesn't get very involved in the fighting until late in the film. Not to say there aren't impressive fights - with Woo-ping Yuen directing, you know you'll see some interesting fights, and an early calligraphy-based fight between the two school's leaders is typically inventive. But it isn't until the rest of the school is defeated that Sammo (assisted by his drunken mentor) comes to the front, in three closing fights. The first, against an annoying but dangerous character appropriately named Wildcat, and the last, againt Ko's father, are both terrific. The latter especially shows off Sammo's great acrobatic talent. The middle fight, between Wing and Ko, doesn't really do much, since Ko is more of a sneak than a great fighter.

I don't know that I can really bump this up to four stars - it does still feel like a pale imitation of a Jackie Chan film. I'm giving it three stars in the end, but it is still a solid movie, and fans of this period of Jackie Chan's career will likely enjoy this one as well.