Where
could you find a heroic film treatment of a European Christian missionary? Hong
Kong in 1973. Father Lewis (Lu Yi) is a true humanitarian who supports Korea’s
aspirations for liberation. Unfortunately, the Japanese occupation does not
cotton to his interference and act accordingly. However, his allies are not
nearly so prone to turn the other cheek. Angela Mao will get some serious retribution
in Feng Huang’s When Taekwondo Strikes (trailer here), which is
included in The Angela Mao Ying Collection now available from Shout Factory.
Wan
Ling-ching is Chinese, but she has always identified with her oppressed Korean
comrades. She can also fight, but her hapkido is different from the taekwondo
practiced by Li Jun-dong, the leader of the local resistance. Li has
masqueraded as the good Father’s servant, but the jig is up. Initially, the
Imperial enforcers are a bit circumspect dealing with Father Lewis for fear of
antagonizing his embassy, but then they realize he is French and proceed to
torture him with impunity. Things really look bad when Li is also captured, but
Wan tries to keep his hot-headed apprentice and Mary, the Father’s kung fu
kicking nun-niece, focused and together.
Taekwondo is a rather
fascinating manifestation of Angela Mao’s international superstardom, obviously
produced with an eye towards the Korean market. In addition to the setting, it
is the only martial film starring taekwondo grandmaster Jhoon Goo Rhee (dubbed “the
Father of American Taekwondo”), who is all kinds of steely awesome as Ji. Mao’s
Wan is also terrifically cool, charismatic, and lethal. Unfortunately,
throughout Strikes, they are
surrounded by spectacularly bad decision-makers with insufficiently established
motivations, especially the rather dazed looking Anne Winton as Mary. She’s got
the moves, though, as we would expect from “Jhoon’s best student,” as the
trailer tells us.
Indeed,
what Strikes does well, it does tremendously
well. That would be the fight scenes choreographed by Chan Chuen and Sammo
Hung, who naturally appears as a Japanese enforcer. The climatic
all-hands-on-deck throw-down is a massively satisfying genre pay-off that will
have fans yelling and cheering at the screen.
