Pedicab Driver (1989)

[Drunk Monk]

Sammo has been coming up a lot in conversation so I treated myself to a rewatch of this classic. It’s Sammo in his prime, doling out the damage by the bucketful and getting plenty of facial bruises in the process. 

The film is light & comedic at first. There’s a lecherous old pastry chef who has several young gals working for him, and in the same house (everyone is dirt poor but they’re doing what they can. Sammo is buddies with Max Mok, Yuen Biao and Hoi Meng, all pedicab drivers. Corey Yuan & Lau Kar-Leung. 

Sammo v LKL is top shelf, an amazing fight scene that levels way up when they go to staff fighting. That fight is a masterpiece 

Then there’s this horribly tragic love story that goes so wrong. It’s brutal and awkward and ends badly.

But it triggers an incredible fight finale where Sammo & Yuen take on a house full of baddies. So hard hitting. The falls are ridiculous - high impact stuff that makes you since with admiration that they pulled off such a stunt without killing someone, or at least breaking their spine. This is Sammo and his fight team delivering their best at their prime. The fights are impeccable. 

Great stuff - D00M recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Forgot to mention that in the opening gang fight, Yuen Biao squares off against a rival and both are wielding fluorescent tubes like lightsabers. It’s a silly scene, so Hong Kong style, and dont let that put you off. That opening fight is mostly for slapstick pratfalls, like a guy wielding double tea kettles and using them to pour boiling water on his rival’s crotch. Yuan’s fights are mostly comical as he’s not playing a great fighter, but he still shows off his acrobatics (Sammo outdoes him acrobatically here). It’s just a tease of what Sammo will do in the rest of the film.