Director: Hsu Hsia
Screenplay: Keith Li Pak-Ling
Starring: Wong Yu, Chiang Kam, Richard Yuen Tak, Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan, Yen Shi-Kwan, Hwang Jang-Lee, Kwan Fung, Wong Mei-Mei, Ku Kuan-chung, Tsung Hua
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 99 min
Year: 1982
BBFC Certificate: 15
Hsu Hsia began his career as an actor, making his on-screen debut in the groundbreaking Come Drink With Me. He featured in numerous martial arts and wuxia classics following this and later began to work as a stunt coordinator and fight instructor on many of these too. He even worked alongside Yuen Woo-ping on the action scenes for a number of his best-known titles, including Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master.
In 1981, however, he took another step up the ladder and co-directed Roar of the Lion alongside Chien Yuen-Sheng. The heads at Shaw Brothers must have been satisfied with his work on this as, the following year, he was allowed to direct his own martial arts movie, Kid from Kwang Tung.
The film is being released by 88 Films this month and, being the kung-fu junkie that I am, I eagerly got hold of a copy to share my thoughts.
Kid from Kwang Tung is a period martial arts movie that centres around two feuding young men, He Jiayu (Wong Yu) and Wu Dezhi (Chiang Kam). The pair are part of different martial arts clans but attend the same school, where they regularly play pranks on each other.
Meanwhile, we discover that their school teacher, Mr. Zhang (Yen Shi-Kwan), is secretly a rebel plotting to reinstate the Ming court. Xiaowei (Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan) and her mother (Wong Mei-Mei) arrive to assist in his plans but the evil Luo Yihu (Hwang Jang-Lee), master of the Northern Legs Clan, also appears on the scene. He and his minions are ruthless in their attempts to put a stop to the rebellion.
As you might have guessed, He Jiayu and Wu Dezhi are roped into this and they must cast aside their differences to work together to stop Luo Yihu.
Kid from Kwang Tung was a bit of a game of two halves for me. I found the film a little lacklustre, to begin with. There’s a lot of goofy comedy which failed to elicit any laughs, though a lengthy sequence which sees our young heroes face off against each other in centipede and cockerel outfits for a festival is enjoyably bonkers.
The first half is also quite clumsily written. Scenes are rather episodic, feeling like a string of random comedy set pieces rather than forming a compelling story. The film even turns into a riff on Encounter of the Spooky Kind for a short while, which feels bizarrely out of place.
However, the second half is much stronger. Not only does the story finally start to come together, but the action kicks into high gear and only gets better as the film moves on.
Director Hsu Hsia and two other fight choreographers, Tsui Fat and Yuen Tak, worked on the action. The fights are nicely varied and demonstrate a thrilling combination of acrobatic moves and weapon combat. Hwang Jang-Lee adds his exceptional kicking skills to the mix too, making him a convincingly powerful bad guy, despite his sparkly outfit and cat companion.
The final showdown is particularly impressive, making the most of the exceptional talents of the main players and choreographers. As such, what begins as a fairly weak, poorly scripted kung-fu comedy becomes a pretty damn good fight flick by the end.
Film: 
Kid From Kwang Tung is out on 28th October on region A&B Blu-Ray & DVD, released by 88 Films (pre-order it here). It looks great, with a clean and detailed picture and rich colours. I’ve used screengrabs throughout this review to give you an idea of how it looks, though these have been compressed. You get a choice of either English dub or Cantonese for audio. I opted for the latter and had no issues with it.
LIMITED FEATURES
– HD Transfer From the Original Negative in 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio
– High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray Presentation
– 2.0 English Mono Dub
– 2.0 Cantonese Mono with English Subtitles
– Trailer
– Stills Gallery
– Reversible sleeve featuring original Hong Kong poster artwork
Sadly, like several of 88 Films’ recent Shaw Brothers releases, there are no notable special features included, but the transfer is very good and it’s still great to see these lesser-known titles become available to kung-fu movie fans like myself.
Disc/package: