Dragon's Claws (1979)

Fresh and Exciting

Admirable film.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

DRAGON'S CLAWS is a cheap knock off of the likes of the popular movies that Jackie Chan was having success with during the era - films like DRUNKEN MASTER and SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW provide the obvious template for this film, about a young student whose master is offed by a ruthless rival and who vows to take revenge by training up and then fighting the bad guy himself. The hero is played by the young Jimmy Liu, designed to look like Jackie, but he doesn't have much of Jackie's charisma or ability.The plot is very straightforward and the fight scenes are quite ordinary, but overall this isn't a bad kind of film. There's plentiful action and incident in the short running time, and there are few slow spots too. Some of it is quite outrageous, like the scene with the drunken master encouraging the kids to urinate. Hwang Jang Lee is as always an imposing presence as the villain of the piece and gets to kick plenty of backside. DRAGON'S CLAWS is hardly a classic but it does pass the time well enough for undemanding fans.

Joseph Kuo was the mastermind behind some of the legendary independent kung fu films of the 1970's and 80's. Not that hey were masterpieces of cinema but that they were some of the most idiosyncratic kung fu films made. 18 Bronze-men, Ninja Checkmate and many others. Here he keeps the story slightly more grounded in reality but it's pretty far out there anyway.A "Dragon Claw" master returns from Manchuria where he became a traitor to China. He's after the coveted Dragon Claw Golden Tablet that will force people to bow down to him. He challenges the Grand-master who has a checkered past of his own. The Grand-master happens to suffers from a terminal chronic injury related to his evil past. The traitor kills the grand-master, causing his wife and son the go into hiding. The wife seems to really be the Dragon Claw master in the family and she vows to train her son the kung fu secrets. The son finds that one of his friends has learned a strange style of kung fu from a filthy medicine man. The son seeks him out to improve his kung fu and defeat the traitor.Everything that makes a low budgeted kung fu film fun is here. Strange villains, the traitor has brought two nasty friends along, the Red Monster and the Green Monster. Red fights with an abacus! Quirky Chinese humor abounds but it doesn't supplant the martial arts. While I would guess that Dragon Claw is wholly invented (it looks like the real martial art of Tiger Claw mixed up with other southern kung fu styles) but there are lots of real martial arts on display from all of the actors. As mentioned in other comments, Kam Chia Fung is quite impressive.Quite a decent amount of fun. Recommended.

DRAGON'S CLAWS (1979) has added value these days thanks to the prominence in its cast of actress Kan Chia Fong, who would turn up 25 years later, billed as Yuen Qiu, as the landlady in Stephen Chow's hit, KUNG FU HUSTLE. She has quite a good part in DRAGON'S CLAWS, playing the mother of an aspiring kung fu fighter who has to contend with the arrival on the scene of his father's enemy, played by Hwang Jang Lee, who had been in love with the mother many years earlier. There's a more complicated backstory than usual here, but it adds to the drama and keeps things interesting as the young hero, played by Jimmy Liu (younger brother of kung fu greats Lau Kar Leung and Lau Kar Wing), trains in various dragon fist techniques, first with his mother, and then with a mysterious old peddler of medicines who's not at all what he seems. The fighting is good, the cinematography better than average, and a good group of actors is on display.But the main reason to seek this out is the performance of Kan Chia Fong. One of the great unsung female performers of 1970s and '80s kung fu cinema, she studied as a girl at the same Chinese Opera school where Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao trained and was a contemporary of theirs. One of her memorable early screen appearances was in the James Bond film, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1975), where she played one of the kung fu-fighting schoolgirls who help out Bond in Thailand. Although her filmography on IMDb is rather sparse, she actually appeared in quite a few kung fu films in the 1970s and '80s, including DREADNAUGHT, NEW TALES OF THE FLYING FOX, and CRAZY SHAOLIN DISCIPLES.She has a major role in DRAGON'S CLAWS and even fights three of the bad guys in two separate scenes. Most of her action scenes, however, consist of training exercises with her son. In one clever bit, she hits him with little dabs of noodle paste to illustrate the 36 vital points of the body. She does all her own fighting and acrobatic stunts. As a screen fighter, she may not have been as ferocious or intense as Angela Mao or Chia Ling and she may not have been as lithe and graceful as Lily Li or Kara Hui Ying Hung, but she is quite a capable performer and a considerable beauty in her own right and one wishes she had made more films.

While the movie says the new style Dragons Claws, There really is no such thing. If you want to see real Eagle Claw then watch this movie! This is not Tae Kwon Do! Because of the excellent fights in this movie I now try to see every movie Hwang Jang Lee ever made. While parts of this movie are a little silly, there are excellent training sequences in the traditional style.Watch his feet! Amazing!!