Chen (Liu Chia-Liang) and his sister (Kara Hui) earn there living by
performing monkey kung fu on stage, and Chen is a real master fighter, but
he also takes to drinking a little too much ...
As it happens, crooked Tuan (Lo Lieh) lusts after Chen's sister, thus
he makes up a plan to get Chen really drunk during a demonstration
of his skills, then he sees to it that Chen is found in bed with another
woman who claims he raped her, and then Tuan asks for Chen's head. Seeing
her brother about to be executed, Ms Chen offers herself to Tuan to save
her brother's life. Tuan agrees, but also demands to have Chen's hands
crippled ...
No longer able to perform kung fu with his crippled hands, Chen now
wanders the countryside selling candies with a little monkey as companion
- and as long as nobody mentions wine or women, he's at peace with the
world. Only a street kid called Little Monkey (Hsiao Hou) sees through his
disguise, becomes his friend and urges Chen to teach him in monkey kung
fu. Chen at first declines, but when ruffians kill his pet monkey and
demand protection money, he grows more and more dependant on Little Monkey
and gives in, and soon enough, Little Monkey is almost as good as Chen
once was - but Little Monkey is also a hothead, and eventually he and his
master fall out ...
Soon enough, Little Monkey is taking on the ruffians who were bullying
Chen, and he has no problems defeating them. Then though the boss of the
ruffians shows up, and it's none other than Tuan, who not only teaches
Little Monkey a lesson and ultimately threatens to cut off his head - and
Little Monkey is saved only just by the timely intervention of Chen's
sister, and he manages to make a getaway.
Chen's sister eventually learns that the whole story with Chen raping
the other woman and such was jsut a setup by Tuan to get his hands on her,
and she soon tries to fight him on her own. Little Monkey, who has been
hanging around, joins the fight when he realizes that she is the woman who
saved his life, but Tuan is too good a fighter for both of them, and
ultimately Little Monkey must make an escape while Chen's sister is
killed.
Little Monkey now returns to Chen, tells him about the whole setup, the
two train some more, and ultimately take on Tuan. In the final fight they
not only defeat him, they also cripple his hands ...
Of course, the story of this film is utterly clichéd (a fate the movie
shares with many Shaw Brothers kung fu flicks of the time
actually), but on one hand at least it doesn't take itself too seriously,
on the other, the fight scenes are really top-notch for their time and at
times hilariously inventive. Not a masterpiece mayhaps, but quite
entertaining actually.
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