Dreadnaught (VCD) (Hong Kong Version) VCD

Dreadnaught combines the traditional (75 year old Kwan Tak-hing playing Wong Fei-hung) and the mad (the Yuen Family in double-barrel grim fantasy mode) for an old school masterpiece. Yuen Woo-ping's brother, Brandy Yuen, plays White Tiger, a disturbingly angry bandit who doesn't just fight people with kung fu, he rips them into tiny shreds with his bare hands. Hiding from the law in an Opera company he develops a pathological aversion to the ringing of the little bells Mousey (Yuen Biao) is constantly noodling with around his neck. Painting himself up like a Chinese opera character White Tiger's humanity evaporates like a puddle on a sunny day, replaced by white hot hatred as he goes for Mousey's throat.

Mousey, a pathological coward who can't even make his sister's laundry customers pay their bills, is taken up by Wong Fei-hung's student, Ah Foon (Leung Kar-yan, who didn't know a lick of kung fu, but was a perfect physical mimic), as a Sunday project. White Tiger's benefactor is out to kill Wong Fei-hung using the Demon Tailor, but if that doesn't work he's got a saw-bladed hat with Master Wong's name on it. Plot lines multiply like bunnies, but at the heart of the film is Yuen Biao's comic cowardice, Kwan Tak-hing's stately performance, and Brandy Yuen's psychopathic scariness.

Fulfilling your need to see those bare teahouse sets full of EZ-break tables, while delivering a collection of human oddities right out of your id, Dreadnaught cannot be improved upon. A slice of film history (Kwan Tak-hing WAS Wong Fei-hung to a generation of film goers, and Bucktoothed So is played by the original, Sai Gwa-pao) and a slice of extreme mystery (the White Tiger is actually VERY scary as he reduces humans to bloody rags; and you'll meet Hak Mo Seung & Bak Mo Seung: the Black & White Guardians of Hell, twin brothers, eternally giggling, who fight with a feather duster and a razor sharp tongue).

by Grady Hendrix