WU TANG MAGIC KICK aka THE MAR'S VILLA [1978] [HCF REWIND]

Wu Tang Magic Kick (1978)
Directed by: Chung Ting
Written by: Shen Wei
Starring: Bao-Yun Tang, Chung Kai Chang, John Liu, Wei Tung

HCF may be one of the newest voices on the web for all things Horror and Cult, and while our aim is to bring you our best opinion of all the new and strange that hits the market, we still cannot forget about our old loves, the films that made us want to create the website to spread the word. So, now and again our official critics at the HCF headquarters have an urge to throw aside their new required copies of the week and dust down their old collection and bring them to the fore…. our aim, to make sure that you may have not missed the films that should be stood proud in your collection.

HCF REWIND 86. WU TANG MAGIC KICK AKA THE MARS VILLA, SHEN TUI [Thailand, 1978]

AVAILABLE ON DVD

RUNNING TIME: 89 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic

On his wedding night Mar Tien Lang, a prosperous businessman and instructor of the ‘Magic Kick’ technique, is attacked in his villa by the villainous Fang Kang. He kills the villain, but the death upsets Mars’ wife and she makes Mar promise to never fight again. However, Fang’s twin brother is out for revenge, and sends his evil step-son Steven Tung Wei to learn about Mar and find a way to beat him. Tung Wei leads Mar into a trap and his ‘magic kick’ is defeated. Mar starts to lose his grip on reality while Tung Wei has eyes for Mar’s wife……

Wu Tang Magic Kick was usually known as The Mar’s Villa until 2000 when it was re-titled to capitalise on the popularity of The Wu-Tang Clan, the American rap collective that may very well be the greatest rap group ever. They not only took their name from a fictional martial arts set in Chinese literature and subsequently films, but also often referred to and sampled old school martial art movies. It is their producer and captain Rza whose pet project The Man With The Iron Fists is coming to UK cinemas this Friday. Wu Tang Magic Kick is probably not the film to see if you’re relatively new to old ‘chop socky’ flicks and let things like bad dubbing, shoddy camerawork, jarring editing between scenes, clumsy direction, hammy acting and other flaws common to this kind of movie bother you. It’s a given that many of these films are badly made. The fun for fans of the genre is in seeing the way the familiar plot elements play out and, first and foremost, THE terrific fight sequences.

Watching a film like this is almost always pleasing to me, no matter how poor some of the filmmaking might be. The main reason? I can see the fighting. No one second edits or shaking the camera around. You can see all the moves in detail and marvel at the skill of some of the performers, first and foremost in the case of this particular film master kicker John Liu, something of an unseen star of martial arts movies but a terrific athlete with kicking ability second to none. He has to battle some great opponents too, my favourites being two guys who work together as one, jumping and rolling over each other in a way that is a delight to behold. To me, this kind of thing, at its best, belongs up there with great dance choreography and ballet and is certainly just as hard to do or harder, which is why many current filmmakers try to disguise the fact that not much is actually being done by employing MTV-style shooting, and when decent stuff is being done, what’s the point if you can’t appreciate it?

Wu Tang Magic Kick packs its first half with terrific fights, making good use of picturesque Taiwan locations [a great many of these movies were shot outside China and Hong Kong] including a great temple festooned with huge golden Buddhas. A stick fight with many combatants is probably the stand-out brawl. Then, about half way through, the film slows down somewhat when its hero is captured, tortured and driven mad. There is too much footage of the poles of his cage being banged by his captors’ metal bars [would this really cause him so much pain and to go beserk?] and his wife being pestered by one of the main villains, while the obligatory ‘training to get back to full health’ montage is rather rushed. Never mind, the final battle, which has not one but two good guys take on the main villain [they didn’t always care about fighting fairly], is a minor masterpiece of movement and skill.

As usual, scenes often appear to be missing or unfinished before we cut to the next scene. The initial attack on Mars’ property is explained away by one of the villains saying; “this town ain’t big enough for both of us”. While much you just can’t help but laugh at, such as director Chung Ting’s Jess Franco-style love of zooms, there are some good angles used to make the most of much of the fighting and there is the odd really well-done moment such as a cut from someone about to fall on spikes to Mar’s wife pricking her finger with a needle. The performances mostly do the job, with Tang Wei being an especially slimy villain and effectively dubbed too. But the music….well….it’s mostly bits of Dominic Frontiere’s score for Hang ‘Em High and two James Bond soundtracks, The Man With The Golden Gun [John Barry] and The Spy Who Loved Me [Marvin Hamlisch], with, believe it or not, a bit of Ennio Morricone’s beautiful Regan’s theme from The Exorcist 2: The Heretic thrown in! This sort of thing was common to this type of film and some of the music does work well though you may get sick of hearing the same Spaghetti Western-type theme towards the end. Overall though, Wu Tang Magic Kick is well worth checking out for kung fu movie fans, if hardly a classic. Others need not really apply though the comedy value may still be worth it!

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