Bullet Points: Magnificent Fist
To the average American movie fan, Carter Wong is probably most recognizable for his role as Thunder in 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China. But fans of the martial arts movie genre, know that Carter Wong had a long career overseas dating back to 1972… well before he ever stirred up any sort of trouble in Little China with Kurt Russell!
Carter Wong appeared in movies like Born Invincible, Hong Kong Superman, Mission for the Dragon and the subject of this edition of Bullet Points, 1978’s Magnificent Fist…
- Ginseng & Juice: Carter Wong plays Yat-Lung, a hard working young man who wants nothing more in this world than to see his elderly father get healthy. Ironically the very ginseng root that Yat-Lung hopes will help get his father back to 100% ends up becoming the root of Yat-Lung’s problems. When Yat-Lung goes to the local pharmacist to pick up some herbs to mix with the ginseng root, the pharmacist ignores what Yat-Lung is asking for and offers to buy the ginseng. root from Yat-Lung. The pharmacist knows full well that some of his wealthy patrons would love to get their hands on the rare ginseng, namely Master Chan-Ten, the Japanese tyrant who runs the town and makes life miserable for the native Chinese. When Yat-Lung refuses to sell the root and tells the pharmacist that he is going to take his business elsewhere… classic angry customer move. The pharmacist then stooges off Yat-Lung to Master Chan-Ten and it isn’t long before some of Chan-Ten’s goons start making life miserable for Yat-Lung. Yat-Lung’s father tells his son, now that he’s pissed off the Japanese things are only going to get worse so his son needs to get out of town… Yat-Lung’s dad speaks from experience, part of the reason he is sick is because he stood up to the Japanese oppressors and got a beating and jail time as a result… he was never the same after that.
- Slave to the Numbers: With our hero and his motives established it was time to take a deeper dive into the villainous side of things and what better way to do that then be a fly on the wall during a meeting of Master Chan-Ten’s criminal empire. On hand are Chan-Ten’s three capos and the crooked Magistrate who has chosen to sell out his own people and look the other way when Chan-Ten and company do nefarious thing. Now each capo has come prepared with year to date statistics of how their revenue streams are performing and their projections for the next year. Part of me felt like I was at work, but then I realized any stats sharing meeting I have been at at work has never been as interesting as the one portrayed in Magnificent Fist and none of them ended the way this one did either. Master Chan-Ten is presented with Irene, the daughter of a shop keeper that didn’t want to play ball, so they killed him. Master Chan-Ten gets all pervy in front of everyone and it really made for an uncomfortable scene… fortunately for Irene, she manages to escape and get out of town before Master Chan-Ten can fulfill his lustful wishes.
- The Swallow: Irene has more good fortune as she happens upon Yat-Lung, who is now living in some shack on the outskirts of the next town over and has taken a job at a quarry. Irene convinces Yat-Lung to let her stay with him offering to earn her keep and do all of Yat-Lung’s cooking and cleaning. Yat-Lung eventually caves into her… but that’s not the only caving in he does. After going out drinking one night after work with some quarry buddies, the guys find themselves talking talking trash about the Japanese. After an evening of hating on the enemy, Yat-Lung caves into his desires to stand up to the Japanese and he decides to take the law into his own hands. Yat-Lung steals from Chan-Ten’s three capos and redistributes the wealth to the towns folk that need it most and every time he does it, he leaves a calling card signed The Swallow. The bad guys are freaking out and trying to figure out who The Swallow is.
- Loser Leaves Town: A local police captain figures out that Yat-Lung is The Swallow before any of the baddies but instead of arresting him the Captain challenges Yat-Lung to a duel, with some stipulations. If the Captain wins, Yat-Lung has to leave town. If the Captain loses, he will resign. This whole thing felt like a pro wrestling angle to me. The duel ended up going to a draw, but before you think they took the cheap way out like some pro wrestling angle, the Captain resigns anyway, realizing he doesn’t want to be like his boss the Magistrate and sell out his fellow Chinese. The Captain becomes an ally to Yat-Lung… and he is going to need some help after getting a letter from back home that his father has passed away and he needs to get back to his mother ASAP. When Chat-Ten figured out that The Swallow and the guy who refused to sell the ginseng were one in the same, he had Yat-Lung’s father killed, knowing full well that Yat-Lung would return to his hometown and then, Chat-Ten could eliminate Yat-Lung once and for all. It was the perfect trap… or was it?
Whoever named the Magnificent Fist the Magnificent Fist was being extremely generous. A more appropriate title would be Run of the Mill Fist. Carter Wong is great in an ensemble (see Way of the Black Dragon) but as a solo act he left a lot to be desired. The off putting voice they went with for Yat-Lung as part of the English dub version did Carter Wong no favors either. By the end of the movie I wanted to see Yat-Lung triumph, not because I wanted to see him get revenge for his father’s murder, but because I knew the movie would be over… although to Magnificent Fist’s “credit”, they managed to drag the movie out a few extra minutes with an awkward exchange between Yat-Lung and his new found friend Captain, who wisely tells Yat-Lung they should go their separate ways.
Before we go our separate ways, I will drag this review out a few minutes longer with some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Something Your Racist Uncle Might Say: “I can’t stand the Chinese people, but their food is very good.”
- If You Ever: …wanted to see Carter Wong stick a pair of chopsticks up a guy’s nostrils, then this is the movie for you.
- That Escalated Quickly: Irene goes from doing Yat-Lung’s laundry and cooking his meals to being madly in love with him in no time flat.
- AKA: Magnificent Fist was also known as Kung Fu Titans… an even less appropriate title than Magnificent Fist.
- One Thing You Didn’t Know: Carter Wong was the martial arts instructor for the Royal Hong Kong Police Department.
