Sadly Over-hyped

one of my absolute favorites!

Lack of good storyline.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Popular Chinese film star Jimmy Wang Yu paused making period flicks to star in this strange modern-day thriller, adopting the put-upon hero role that Bruce Lee liked to play in his movies. But this film is quite unique, a bizarre combination of kung-fu fighting mixed with some of the gravity-defying feats of strength seen in MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE, all set in a '70s locale with romantic sub plots and a racial theme running throughout the film. Wang Yu plays a fish out of water, a Chinese guy named Seven (!) who typically hates Japanese folk (as always in Jimmy's films) but is forced to flee to Japan after accidentally murdering a man in a bar-room brawl because - get this - he was singing too loudly. What follows is a fairly typical thriller with lots of fights, a fair degree of imagination. and a clichéd gang of bad guys.It actually makes a change for Wang Yu to take time out to romance a pretty Japanese girl instead of fighting all the time, so the romance isn't too hard to swallow. One amusing aspect of the film has Wang Yu adopting the guise of a seaman (hence the film's rather mundane American title, SEAMAN NO. 7), complete with an over-the-top hat, and whistling the tune from BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI throughout over and over again. It's irritating but highly amusing if you're in the right mood, as I found. The acting is pretty much wooden, but the bad dubbing adds to the enjoyment of the flick and Wang Yu is as fun as ever as the hard-but-kind everyday hero character.The various martial arts fights are plentiful but lacking in much physical skill or special moves, and there's little in the way of stunts or gore either (gotta love that violent bit where Wang Yu traps a bad guy's arm in a van door and slams it over and over again though). The one saving factor is the locations in which the fights take place - it seems like director Lo Wei was trying to think up as many new places to fight as possible, and therefore we get fights on rooftops, in a bowling alley, a speedboat chase, and even some underwater-fu! It's pretty tacky and silly stuff which still has its own unique charm. My favourite fight is in the back of a slow-moving pick-up truck! The finale sees Wang Yu taking on the big bosses who killed his family, basically a silly-looking Japanese guy with blond hair (!) and a tough Sumo wrestler who takes some beating. Not a classic of its kind, and far from the demented appeal of the one-armed boxer flicks that Wang Yu made, but solid enough fare for fight fans and different enough to be entertaining.

Jimmy Wang Yu changes his shirt seven times and has seven magnificent fights. I really didn't count and I would not say the fights were magnificent but he did change his shirt each time. I love Jimmy Wang Yu. In this movie he shows one of his best skills - the brawler. Put Jimmy up against a crowd of stunt men and he makes it look powerful and natural. Sometimes he takes it to the level of madness but not this time. This movie has the feel that it was made as a second thought. Jimmy was going on vacation to Kyoto and said - we might as well make a movie while we are there, it won't cost much more. Yet there are monumental moments in this movie. I've watched thousands of martial arts movies and this is the only one I can think of that has a fight in a bowling alley. The other moment is the fight in the abandoned building. This had to be one of the most dangerous fights ever filmed. It seems they scouted a location and it was an abandoned factory size building that was overgrown with about ten years of weeds. They did a fight on the second floor. It was a miracle the floor did not collapse as I'm sure there was little or no safety inspection first. Plus there was exposed rebar all over just waiting to impale a stuntman. Perhaps stunt men did get impaled, we will never know as that was the nature of the job. Since this was made in 1973 there is also the men's clothes. That was a time when a man could wear anything. James Tien appears as the character Golden Hair. He is spray tanned and wears a blonde wig. It all looks quite normal for the year when a white shirt and bright pink pants are added to the ensemble. Overall, unless you are a Jimmy Wang Yu completist, this movie is pretty dull and below average.