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5 Pattern Dragon Claws

  Country : Hong Kong / Korea
Year: 1982
Genre: Martial Arts
Format: DVD
Running Time: 1h30
Distributor: Vengeance Video
Date reviewed: 10/20/2003
   
Producer: Thomas Tang
Director: Godfrey Ho, Tommy Kim

Cast:
Hwang Jang Lee, Dragon Lee, Jacky Kim

 


Story: A monastery holds four books containing the secrets of its powerful martial arts techniques. Everybody wants to get their hands on them, including a band of local evil types. The abbot is killed, and the head students begin to argue over who should keep the books safe.

Review: Director Godfrey Ho made a living from producing terrible films. This comes as no surprise when you learn that much of his work is the result of glueing together exerts from other people’s unfinished movies, and box office flops that nobody saw the first time round. Often filming short sequences to abridge these random chunks of kung fu, they were usually released onto the American market during the home video boom of the early 80’s.

“Five Pattern Dragon Claws’, however, appears to have actually originated from Korea, and a collaboration of sorts between Tommy Kim and Godfrey Ho. It doesn’t seem to be one of Ho’s usual clumsy mish-mash of unfinished movies, but it isn’t entirely clear in how the work was shared between the two directors, but needless to say, Godfrey pulls proceedings down to his level.

The dubbed dialogue is predictably awful. Most exchanges are repetitive and empty, as the voice actor’s struggle to apply meaning to the events on screen and fill the Chinese actor’s mouths with meaningless nonsense. In one insightful and revealing dialogue, the star begs his girlfriend, “Will you come with me? Come on you must come with me”. She doesn’t want to go anywhere, and he cleverly replies “ You must come with me right away. Please, right away. Come on lets go. Please. Come”. Award winning? Probably not, but one of the Buddhist monks sounds a lot like Sean Connery, which raises a laugh or two.

Sure, the generous scenes of martial arts occasionally impress, especially some of the perfectly executed kicks, but this is an ultimately forgettable movie, which even Hwang Jang Lee cannot save, as his talents are tragically under used. ‘5 Pattern Dragon Claws’ is one of hundreds of uninspiring and faceless old school kung fu films that fog the mind and obscure the view of the genuinely enthralling retro movies that are out there for those willing to seek them out.

DVD [ PAL, All Region ] :

A rubbish disk. An obvious transfer from VHS which seems to switch aspect ratio on occasion. For the most part, it seems to be Letterbox Widescreen. Kind of. As for bonus features, somebody should tell these people that one trailer and some chapter stops does NOT count. Maybe they should have listed the hole in the middle of the disk as a special feature, too. Bad distributors, no!

Reviewed by Russ Houghton


Story Cast Entertainment Subtitles Overall
2 2 2.5 N/A 2


 

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