The Victim (1980)

If you are a Kungfu classic fan, you must get this film. Warning, you must be patient through the first 10 minutes of this movie. If you can survive the first five minutes, you will definitely be rewarded. This movie has absolutely great fight scenes and a cool story. As the movie progresses the fight scenes become more and more vicious. Why this movie is never listed among the great classics like, 5 deadly Venoms, Master Killer, Snakefist and the monkey shadow and so on, is baffling. Though the movie starts pretty silly, things get pretty serious and stay serious for the remainder of the movie. For Icing on the cake, Wilson Tong makes an appearance. I am absolutely positive that it has the best final fight scene in Kungfu cinema History. A Must See!

Lightning Kung Fu, a.k.a. The Victim, has a remarkably good and clear plot (besides all its comical elements). It is structured as two parallel plot lines which converge at the end. First we have director and actor Sammo Hung's character, who's a young, arrogant kung fu adept running around challenging everybody, in order to find someone better than himself, so he can make that person his master and learn more. He goes through all the local masters, incl. a feeble Shaolin grandmaster, before finally finding Chun Yao (the excellent Ka Yan Leung), who lives with his wife in a house outside of town. Chun Yao is the best kung fu practitioner in the district, but is strangely timid and passive, and he rejects Sammo's persistent pleas to become his student. So Sammo decides to hang around his house, sleep outside, and just generally stay, much to the annoyance of Chun Yao. Soon it becomes clear that Chun Yao was adopted by the local kung fu master, and throughout his upbringing was hated by this master's biological son, Jo-Wing. On Chun Yao's wedding night, Jo-Wing tried to rape his new wife, Yoo-Yi, and this led to Chun Yao and Yoo-Yi's leaving the household to live outside town. Chun Yao can't do anything about Jo-Wing, because he is his brother, and because he accidentally blinded Jo-Wing on one eye when they were children, so he is bound by honor to respect his elder brother no matter what. That really is the theme of the story: where do the limits to honor-bound obligation go? How much humiliation and abuse can Chun Yao suffer at his step-brother's hand before it becomes too much? Quite a great deal, it turns out. Like in some of his other movies, the master fighter Ka Yan Leung plays a somewhat cowering character who takes a lot of abuse before finally, after it is in fact too late to save his loved ones, takes action. Considering how great his kung fu skills are, this is not a very satisfactory way to tell (and end) the story. However, at least there *is* a clear storyline (which is relatively rare in second-rate kung fu movies), and the quality of the fight scenes is very good, especially the climactic sequences at the end.Anyway, Sammo's character has a major role at the end also, where we find out that he wasn't quite what he pretended to be. The story has good twists and turns, and just before the end, Sammo actually succeeds in making Chun Yao his master.All in all a good movie, but with notable shortcomings. The story is good and clear, but some developments are not satisfying. I rate this movie a 7 out of 10.

Sammo's remarkable masterpiece is ideally a classic vehicle to showcase Leung Kar Yan's talents (he's simply never looked better), but The Victim seems to work on many other levels: the action scenes are worthy of Sammo's legendary status as a choreographer; the comedy touches are subtle enough and occasionally quite funny; and with it's outpouring of high-octane drama - detailing an ongoing family feud - this is thoroughly more exciting than other run-of-the-mill kung fu pulp. Sammo plays his typical happy-go-lucky who seeks out a new sifu, Leung Kar Yan, a man with clearly problems of his own: his brother (Chang Yi) tried to rape his wife and has therefore been on the run ever since. Will Leung ever face up to his enemy or just continue to run? The Victim is a true late night classic; still fresh and entertaining even after all these years.

What a fantastic film. I really wasn't expecting much, it just seemed like a run of the mill 1970s Kung-fu flicks, but boy was I wrong. Chung Yao (Leung), a martial arts expert, has long been on the run from his step-brother who he caught trying to rape his wife on their wedding night. His brother has never given up the chase however, and Chung Yao lives in constant fear that he and his wife will be murdered by the vengeful step-brother. On one of his visits to the village, Chung meets Fatty (Sammo) who is insistent on becoming his servant. Sammo's attempts at winning Chung's favour takes up the first half hour/ forty five minutes of the film, and it's hilarious. Chung has got no patience for a fool like Fatty, and he tries to dodge and lose him in a number of comical and exciting situations including a hilarious set-up at a sauna.As the film progresses, a really strong story develops, and even though it may initially seem like one of those typical kung-fu vengance movies of that period, it really isn't. There was not one dull moment throughout, and the last half an hour both fight-wise and plot-wise was just mind-blowing. You really wouldn't expect such an powerful and intelligent ending, but watch it and be bowled over. There are some excellent fight scenes between Fatty and Chung, and Sammo gets to do many of his trademark stunts with all the usual wit and energy. But the real icing on the cake has to be the closing fight between Chung Yao and his step-brother, top-notch stuff. From someone who really isn't a fan of the period Kung-Fu flicks of the 1970s/early 80s all I can say is: See it now. 10/10