Shaolin Daredevils (4 Stars)

This is a Shaw Brothers film made in 1979. The date that it's supposed to take place isn't stated, but my guess, based on the military uniforms, is that it's early in the 20th Century, before World War One. Does anyone know when this Mercedes was made? That could narrow it down.

A rebellious soldier called Han assassinates his commander and takes his place. The commander's son, Yang Daying, witnesses the murder and flees to his friend Chen, a street performer. Together with his friends Li and Fu, Chen does acrobatics on the street to earn a few coins for their food every day. Another friend, Shen, the son of a security guard, says they should make a plan on how to avenge the commander's death. Yang is impatient and attacks the new commander by himself. He's killed.

The four friends say they should avenge Yang's death, but this time with a plan. Chen pretends to be the arrogant son of a Field Marshall, Shen is his ambassador, Li and Fu are his bodyguards. Chen, calling himself Master Sun, tells Han that his father wants to promote him to general, but first he must win a major battle. He tells him that he has 1000 German machine guns that will make his army invincible. This is just to lure Han into a warehouse. Unfortunately, Han has three bodyguards, who are all very skilled fighters, one with nunchucks, one with a whip, one with his bare hands.

There are many lengthy fights in this film, but they're unrealistic. The three acrobats use their skills for moves like the one pictured, two men picking up the third to kick their opponent in the face. In other scenes they roll over one another's backs for an attack. I doubt this would be effective in a real fight. It's not just the three acrobats who fight unrealistically. Their opponents all seem to be acrobats rather than fighters. The fight scenes all have the feeling of an extravagantly choreographed ballet.

At first this irritated me, but as the film progressed I began to enjoy the Chinese ballet.

The Blu-ray contains two versions, the uncut version (104 minutes) and the international version (81 minutes). I watched the uncut version, of course. Even without watching the international version, I know which 23 minutes were cut. In England it was illegal to show nunchucks in films. That also led to cuts being made from Bruce Lee's films when they were first shown. "Shaolin Daredevils" has several fight scenes with nunchucks. Even though the fights are unrealistic, these scenes had to be cut. Snip snip!