Reviewed by: silence
Date: 06/18/2004
Two sisters, seeking vengeance on a local General for killing their father, ask Wong Fei Hung to teach them his No Shadow Kick, believing it will help them defeat the General in combat. When Master Wong refuses for pacifist reasons, the sisters try to trick his students Strange Foot Seven and Butcher Wing into helping them.
In featuring the otherwise retired Kwan Tak Hing, in one his late encores as Wong Fei Hung, Magnificent Kick can be seen as a companion film to Magnificent Butcher and Dreadnought. Although it is not as good as either of those, it is quite entertaining in its own right.
The Chinese title is something like "Wong Fei Hung presents Strange Foot Seven". The hero of the story is thus Strange Foot, one of the regular characters in the Wong Fei Hung series from the very beginning. More recently he was played by Xin Xin Xiong in the Tsui Hark series, and by Yuen Biao in The Kickboxer (Biao actually played him in Magnificent Butcher as well, although the character was a bit-part in that film).
The lack of really famous faces, excepting Kwan Tak Hing (who only appears briefly in early scenes) and the villain played by Han Ying Chieh, who many will recognise as the villain in Bruce Lee's The Big Boss (AKA Fists of Fury), means that this film seems much lower-budget than the aforementioned companion films.
Currently the only version of this film available is the Video Asia DVD (a double bill with Butcher Wing). We therefore have no choice but to accept the awful dubbing and the poor source picture.
If you are a fan of the Wong Fei Hung character and want to see anything relating to him, then this is essential if only because of the presence of Kwan Tak Hing. Otherwise, Magnificent Kick offers the stereotypical badness that casual viewers of kung fu movies expect.
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