RETURN OF THE CHINESE BOXER (神拳大戰快鎗手)
Dir. Jimmy Wang Yu, 1977
Hong Kong/Taiwan. 99 min.
In English (dubbed)

SATURDAY, JULY 5 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 11 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JULY 21 – 10 PM

In the wake of the First Sino-Japanese War, a cabal of Japanese ninja warlords contemplate their takeover of China using an array of exotic weaponry and supernatural forces at their disposal. The only thing standing in their way: A master martial artist whose studio was decimated by those same warlords and who’s hellbent on getting his revenge..

Prior to Bruce Lee’s ascension, arguably the only Hong Kong action star that had achieved a shade of the same recognition abroad was Jimmy Wang Yu, star of Shaw Brothers Studio’s international breakout, THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN (1967). As Lee’s stardom began to eclipse his own, Wang turned to roles behind the camera as the director of seminal kung fu classics like ONE-ARMED BOXER (1971), BEACH OF THE WAR GODS (1973), and MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE (1976).

After Lee’s passing, some studios fell back on Wang’s legacy as the one-time undisputed king of kung fu cinema, marketing the releases of FLYING GUILLOTINE and RETURN OF THE CHINESE BOXER around the tagline, “Before there was Bruce Lee…”. Unfortunately, dogged by alleged ties to organized crime and legal troubles involving his broken contract with Shaw Bros. (eventually resulting in Wang being banned from making films in Hong Kong), RETURN ended up being Wang’s final film as director, though his legacy as a one-man New Wave who brought a unique cinematic flair to otherwise standard wuxia proceedings has made him as vital a figure in the history of kung fu cinema as Lee.