The Screaming Tiger (1973)

I saw this Jimmy Wang Yu vehicle under the title THE SCREAMING TIGER. IT was one of the films he made in Taiwan immediately following his split with the famous Shaw Brothers studio. The plot is a straightforward one for Wang Yu fans; he plays a kung fu fighter whose village is slaughtered by the ruthless Japanese, causing Wang Yu to travel to Japan in order to get revenge on the Japanese people as a whole. After a time, he discovers that there's an even worse race in existence: the Koreans! This is a nondescript vehicle for the actor which lacks the finesse and enjoyment factor of both his Shaw vehicles and later, funnier efforts like THE ONE-ARMED BOXER. The plot is simple and the action even simpler, merely consisting of the actors kicking and punching until one dies. A standard basher, then, only enlivened by the lengthy chase climax. Regular heavy Lung Fei gives a fun turn as the villain of the piece.

note - the information on some packages for this film is frequently false - not this film's cast, not its crew, not its international release title. 'screaming tiger' - written, directed, and starring wang yu, along with what was, at the time, his ensemble cast and crew, who worked with him on many other films of the period.ej's kung-fu capsule review for films of the chop-socky old-school - 1. basic plot type - revenge; school vs. school; ethnic conflicts; buddhist message 2. plot construction - standard English-version pretty badly chopped up; but what is there is actually well-constructed, if occasionally derivative 3. dramatic - yes 4. funny - occasionally; marvelous moment when wang yu finds himself surrounded by 20 thugs and, without a word, smiles and shrugs, and just starts tossing them around 5. dialog - good for this genre 6. cast performance - very good 7. crew performance - not great, but above average for this genre at that time 8. amount of fighting - a lot 9. quality of fighting - good 10. special any cast or crew notes - occasionally credited to lo wei in reviews, the film was actually written and directed by star wang yu; although wang yu had contributed to the general 'jap'-bashing that plagued chop-socky 'fu for a while, he had quite a large following in japan, where he would eventually co-star in 'zatoichi vs. the one-armed swordsman'; this film is the first effort, in hong kong 'fu films, to find some way to 'forgive and forget' and abandon ethnic strife 11. big positive - just a nice bit of genre film-making over all 12. big negative - editing is weak bottom-line - who should see this movie - solid kung-fu entertainment for those with any interest in the genre

i don't know why some people who say they like martial art movies could possibly speak ill of this film. this movie is everything that was good about 70's martial arts movies. Dragon Lee movies represent all that was BAD about 70's martial arts movies, but this movie's great. and Wang Yu is awesome.

This is an under-rated martial arts film which tells the story of a Chinese martial-artist who travels from his homeland to Japan to seek the Master who murdered his family and destroyed their village. Filmed on location in Japan, we are given a fabulous look into feudal Japan, the dark side of the human psyche, frailty of human life and the enduring bonds of love, honor, friendship, courage and strength. Try to find the unedited DVD or VHS version which contains the full version of the film.