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Qiang (Sang Wei-Lin), a young martial artist, & his best friend Shrimp come
to Shenzhen, the big city, from a small rural village to find their fortunes
& make enough money to buy a car, but at first they find nothing better
than earn a living working as truckers ... until a barroom brawl Qiang has
started with Xanda (a combination of boxing, wrestling & martial arts)
champion Wei (Teng Jun) over the honour of a young woman ends with Shrimp's leg
badly broken.
Qiang is told the leg has to be amputated if he cannot pay for an expensive
operation - which he can't ... but Ning (Ni Jing-Yang), the young woman whom
Qiang defended, can, & Qiang insists that he will pay her back ... while
she has long since fallen in love with him.
As a means to earn enough money to pay her back, Qiang decides to learn
Xanda himself to win the prize money at a beginner's tournament - but after
painstaking training sessions with master Tieh (Zhang Hong-jun) & his son
Long (Zhao Zi-Long), Qiang loses miserably at the tournament, is pretty much
beaten to a pulp, & is kicked out of Tieh's Xanda school for his arrogance.
Qiang's lovelife seems to blossom & bloom after that though, as he is
soon going steady with Ning, & he & Shrimp even get their own car -
even if it's only a taxi they are driving to make a living. But then, while
Ning learns she is pregnant from Qiang, he sees his old friend Long beaten to a
pulp by Wei in a Xanda championship fight ... & for some reason he all of a
sudden decides he must avenge Long, re-enrolls in master Tieh's Xanda school
& starts to neglect his girlfriend - of whose pregnancy he knows nothing.
It is not until the day of the big fight against Wei that he finds out, but
by then she is on the way to the trainstation to leave Shenzhen (for good one
wonders) ... & Qiang is determined to end the fight before ten o'clock
(when her train leaves - oh no, now it's really getting preposterous), but due
to his lack of concentration he almost gets knocked out by Wei (ohmigod), but
just like the incredible Hulk that only makes him stronger & he comes back
& in the end to noone's surprise wins the fight - even if that means he has
to miss her train.
Then he goes back to his old hometown in the country, where he, against all
odds, finds her again (what ? ... big WHAT ?). End.
Despite some good action ... this is a martial arts movie as pathetic as
they come, pretty much the first four Rocky-movies rolled into
one (& this is not meant as a compliment), steeping kneedeep in clichés,
determined to even using the few the Rocky movies avoided (the
worst of them being possibly a lovestory told in flashbacks between Qiang &
a handicapped girl). & what really makes it worse, the story is told dead
serious, as if nobody even noticed the inherent cheesiness of the story.
Don't watch it. Rather watch even a Rocky movie (& that
is something you won't hear me say very often).
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amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Xanda at adultvideouniverse.com
