No Surrender Cinema: Mantis Combat
Get ready for another No Surrender Cinema that shines a spotlight on one of the highly skilled, yet obscure, stars of 70’s kung fu cinema! After discovering the awesome Mean Streets of Kung Fu on Tubi earlier this year (and covering it for this very column), I fell down a kung fu rabbit hole and have become what my partner in crime Chris the Brain has deemed a “Barry Chan Superfan”. I certainly can’t argue that point, especially since Barry’s back again for his third appearance at Bulletproof Action in 2023 thanks to this review of Mantis Combat!
(Due to the fact that this appears to be one of the lesser seen Kung Fu films of the era (there are virtually no reviews or discussions about this one elsewhere on the interwebs), it was hard to get information on a lot of the characters and actors, but it’s not as if there was a complicated story to tell. I apologize in advance if I’ve gotten any of the names wrong.)
A coveted treasure map is the focal point of Mantis Combat, acting as the impetus for all of the events in the film. The early minutes of Mantis Combat are a bit jumpy, as we get a prison break happening in the current day, then a flashback to two men who we learn are brothers having a fight over a treasure map left to them by a now-deceased third man. It turns out that the escaped prisoner Yi Lo (Sing Chen aka Chen Sing, who was a featured player in the golden age of martial arts films and even had a small role in Double Impact) has come looking for the treasure map, but his former partner is now reformed and refuses. The ensuing fight over the map ends up with the good man and his family killed, but what the bad guys don’t know is that the man’s son (Barry Chan) is the one who has the map now, and when he finds out what happened to his family, he’s going to have one thing on his mind: revenge!
Barry doesn’t go at it alone either, as a few friends tag along the way on his journey. Traveling in a pack doesn’t deter the criminal element though, because the three men are spied on and attacked one night at the inn they’re staying at. Despite the setback, the trio moves on, picking up additional help along the way when a young girl, on the run from the people who killed her parents, joins our gang our heroes. This addition to the plot seemed to be done to set up a love story between Barry and “Jo Fang Chin” (at least that’s what it sounds like she said her name was) and leads to an awkward scene where she argues with Barry Chan because he hadn’t asked her name yet, he says she never asked for his, he asks for hers, and then she acts like she knows his name already.
Traveling through the woods, the group are ambushed by a pack of masked assailants (which at first appeared to be ninjas, but I’ve never seen ninjas fight in unbuttoned shirts). Barry’s overweight friend (the name they call out sounds like “Farnum”) and Fang Chin are kidnapped during the attack, but Barry’s other ally dispatches of the non-ninjas while Barry himself encounters a powerhouse of a man, dressed like a Buddha and swinging a necklace the way wrestler Bruiser Brody swung his chain. After a hard fought battle, Barry rescues his friends, but almost immediately they meet a man who tells them the path they need to take is blocked, blackmailing Barry Chan into letting him come along as the groups guide. The man turns out to be another crook with an ulterior motive, and our heroes soon find themselves abandoned in the middle of the woods, forced to navigate their own way through. Finding their way to another inn, the group doesn’t know that the inn serves as the headquarters for Yi Lo and his henchmen, and they’ll stop at nothing to get the treasure map!
I was looking forward to Mantis Combat given my affinity for previous Barry Chan films, but I have to admit, this one is my least favorite of those I’ve seen. What action there is is fine, but it feels like there’s more time spent on Chan and Friends wandering around aimlessly than there is of them getting into fights. They’re also the most gullible group of heroes, never realizing that everyone they encounter are after the map until it’s too late…but I guess if they were less trustworthy we wouldn’t have gotten as many fights!
As far as the fights go, they’re fun, but it felt like there wasn’t as much of them and what fights you do see in Mantis Combat go by too fast. The only exception to this is when Chan’s character and his “brother” square off with Yi Lo in a 2 on 1 battle that sees Barry break out some mantis kung fu, while his rival uses what looks like Tiger style (where are Bolo Yeung and Jalal Merhi when you need them?), complete with roar and growl sound effects! The end of the fight (and film) is rather abrupt, but that’s par for the course for old school kung fu, as the final few minutes of the film see the villainous Yi Lo finally get his comeuppance.
I’m still a big Barry Chan fan after seeing Mantis Combat, but unlike Mean Streets of Kung Fu I can’t see myself going back to watch this one again anytime soon. The story can be a bit of a drag and some of the fights are virtually unwatchable due to them taking place in the dark, but the action we do get is pretty pedestrian until the final battle. If you’re looking for classic kung fu I’ve certainly seen a lot worse, but the lack of chatter about this one online seems to prove my point that Barry Chan has done a lot better than this.
Mantis Combat is currently streaming on Tubi
