Overview: Having established himself as Hong Kong’s premier action choreographer throughout the 1970s, Sammo Hung ended the decade by directing a non-stop assault of kung fu classics for Golden Harvest, starting with the brutal Iron-Fisted Monk.

But it would be his 1979 directorial effort that would finally give his Peking Opera brother-in-arms, acrobatic ace Yuen Biao, his first chance at leading man status: Knockabout!

Brothers and partners-in-crime, Yipao (Biao) and Taipao (Warriors Two’s “Beardy” Leung Kar-Yan), have made an up-and-down career out of being hustlers, conning everyone from bank tellers to casino dealers. One day, they push their luck with the wrong man, martial arts master Chia Wu Dao (legendary Shaw Brothers fight choreographer Lau Kar-Wing), but convince him to reluctantly become their teacher in hand-to-hand combat.

But upon learning Chia’s dangerous true nature, Yipao turns to another master: a portly blinking beggar (Hung) trained in the ways of the monkey fist. Will this new skill defeat Chia’s secret snake style?

Combining Hung’s hard-hitting choreography with the Mo Lei Tau style of humor that was increasing in popularity at the time, Knockabout is a thrill-a-minute action spectacular that would pave the way for later masterpieces such as Hung and Biao’s subsequent collaboration, the Wing Chun tour-de-force The Prodigal Son.

Blu-ray Verdict: Knockabout is a prime example of all the virtues of old school kung-fu movies. It has cool characters, comedy, seriousness, a classic type of story, and loads and loads of great fighting and training sequences (especially, of course, towards the end). And it has these elements in such gold standard versions that it comprises a superb representation of the classic Hong Kong martial arts movie genre.

Also, Knockabout brings together three of that time’s top names in the world of kung-fu movie-making, Sammo Hung, Ka-Yan Leung and Yuen Biao. Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao went on to do many movies with Jackie Chan, and actually Ka-Yan Leung’s comedic role in this movie could well have been played by Jackie Chan. But I guess, at the time (1979), Ka-Yan Leung was a hotter name.

This is the first time I’ve actually seen Ka-Yan Leung in a comedy role. He is usually very intense and serious, and often even bitter (see Lightning Kung-Fu and The Postman Strikes Back). So this is quite a change. He pulls off the comedy part very well indeed, demonstrating that his acting range isn’t limited to one kind of role.

The main reason Ka-Yan Leung’s such a hot property, however, is his marvelous kung-fu skills. In Knockabout he and Yuen Biao are a couple of thieving brothers who are pretty good at kung-fu. But when they encounter a guy they can’t beat, they beg to become his students. And indeed, he teaches them to become so good that (as he tells them) ordinary people are no match for them.

So, the happy-go-lucky brothers promptly go out in search of some ordinary people to test their new skills against. They find a bunch of extortion racketeers at the local marketplace, who, when asked who they are, claim to be merely ordinary people - and then, of course, the fighting breaks out! Very effective comedy ensues thereafter!

Sammo Hung plays a beggar/thief who follows the naive brothers, consistently fooling them out of half their loot. When their newfound master turns out to be a bad guy who only trained the brothers in order to fight off his enemies (who were using combinations of styles that no one person could counter, but two could), Sammo’s the only one who knows enough kung-fu to beat him.

And that’s leaving out a lot of other plot details! This is a very good movie with a good story, but parts of it are not as entertaining as it could be. The seriousness is too at times, considering how wacky the movie’s comedy dimension is, so it comes off a little uneven, so to speak, at varying plot moments.

2K restorations from the original elements by Fortune Star of both the original HK Theatrical Cut and the shorter Export Cut
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless Cantonese and Mandarin mono audio for the HK Theatrical Cut, plus lossless English mono for both cuts
Two choices of English dubbed audio for the HK Theatrical Cut: the original export dub mono and the newer 5.1 dub created for international DVD presentations
Optional English subtitles for the HK Theatrical Cut and English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing on the Export Cut
Commentary on the HK Theatrical Cut by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng & Michael Worth
Commentary on the Export Cut by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema
Archival interview with Sammo Hung
Archival interview with Bryan “Beardy” Leung Kar-Yan
Archival interview with Grandmaster Chan Sau Chang (aka The Monkey King), a master of Monkey Style kung fu
Deleted “Red Room” scene, featuring stars Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung in a teaser promo for the film’s Japanese release
Original theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ilan Sheady

www.arrowvideo.com