Last Hero in China a.k.a. Deadly China Hero

Dir.: Wong Jing

Cast: Jet Li, Cheung Man, Dicky Cheung, Natalis Chan, Leung Ka-Yan, Gordon Liu, Anita Yuen, Yuen King-Tan

A.K.A. Deadly China Hero

Year: 1993


Jet Li reprises his role as Martial Arts Master Wong Fei Hong in this unofficial sequel (and parody) to the Once Upon A Time In China series. In this film, Wong needs a bigger school for his students. At first, good fortune seems to come his way when he finds a larger building for a lower price. However, this rapidly changes when he finds out that his next door neighbor is actually a brothel. Besides this, Wong has to deal with a group of perverted monks who are kidnapping girls to sell into slavery. They're in cahoots with the new chief of police (so to speak), a maniacal loon who is really fronting for the boxer rebellion. On top of all of that, foreigners are selling bogus medicine that causes hearing loss to Chinese children, and a father and daughter kung fu team are searching for their lost daughter/sister.

This was a fun movie to watch, though not extraordinary. Li plays it straight, but the movie itself has a more satirical bent, with a lot of the humor coming from Wong's bumbling assistants. The classic scene, however, features Li dressed up like a chicken in order to defeat the boxers, who are dressed in an armored centipede costume, complete with razored legs and a flamethrower! You get all of the classic elements: the no-shadow kick, fighting in the scaffolding, and so on. You also get to see Li doing drunken kung fu (and there's even a Jackie-style bloopers reel at the end). What you don't get is the serious socio-political approach to the subject found in the OUATIC series. So if you weren't into the whole political scene but enjoyed the action then this movie is for you. Simply put, Last Hero In China is a fun, lightweight film. You should be able to find it in widescreen format at Suncoast Video or any video store as the title Deadly China Hero. I rated this 8 out 10 stars.