This is a typical Jimmy Wang Yu feature after his stint with the Shaw Brothers.
Jimmy earns his money as a taxi driver, but has the sad tendency to always get into trouble he can only get out of using his kung fu. Since Taiwan seems to have very strange laws concerning things like self defense, he always ends up paying the hospital bills of the guys he's knocking out, even of the gangsters who tried to rape his girlfriend. Soon a problem appears that he can't make go away by hitting it and he learns a few important things about the morality of violence. Oh, no, wait. It's a Jimmy Wang Yu movie, so of course a problem appears that he solves by hitting, kicking and killing a few people.
Jimmy's father was working as an aide to a Japanese officer during the Japanese occupation, but secretly helped the resistance against them. After he made the escape of an important spy possible, the officer committed suicide, as did the officer's wife some time later. Their three sons were brought up by their grandmother, who trained them in the martial arts to take revenge on Jimmy's father.
Now the three come to Taiwan to kill their victim and - since it is a Jimmy Wang Yu movie and in Jimmy's little world all Japanese people are incredibly evil - his whole family.
Although they develop some devious plans, some of them involving a saw and Jimmy's blind sister, they aren't successful at all. Instead, Jimmy slaughters them all mercilessly.
Granny of course won't let the matter rest that easily and makes a final assault.
There's not a lot to say about Knight Errant. As in many of JWY's films the direction has a lot of sloppy moments and some inspired ones. The same goes for the fight choreography and acting. Unfortunately the sloppiness this time overwhelms most of the inspired moments as thoroughly as Jimmy does with his victims enemies, leading to a film I can't help but call a little boring.
It doesn't help the entertainment value of the film that there is not much of the madness on display that makes a lot of our hero's movies endearing in spite of themselves; there are no flying guillotines, no Yoga fighters with telescopic arms nor any midgets on display. Even the theoretically nastier moments of violence are somewhat subdued.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment