''Dragon Fist'' (), also known as ''Dangsang Martial Arts'' or ''The Wild Big Boss'', is

Plot

Tang How-yuen (Jackie Chan) is a disciple of kung fu master San-thye. San-thye wins a martial arts tournament, only to be killed by evil kung fu master, Master Li (Yen Shi-kwan). Tang tries unsuccessfully to fight Chung, and leaves the evil master unharmed. Tang, along with San-thye's wife and daughter head after the killer to seek revenge. When they find him, Chung has repented and has cut off his own leg as penance. The master's widow becomes ill, so Tang goes to work for a gang in order to get her medicine. However, whilst in their employ, he is blamed for the death of a young boy, and San-Thye's widow is poisoned. Tang and the one-legged master join forces to defeat the evil lord who poisoned San-thye's widow.

Cast

Jackie Chan Fang Shilong (born 7 April 1954), known professionally in English as Jackie Chan and in Chinese as Cheng Long ( zh, c=成龍, j=Sing4 Lung4; "becoming the dragon"), is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman known for ...

as Tang How-yuen * Hsu Hsia as Master King *

Ouyang Sha-fei Qian Shunying ( zh, t=錢舜英, w=Chien Shun-ying; September 9, 1924 – March 8, 2010), better known by her stage name Ouyang Sha-fei ( zh, t=歐陽莎菲, s=欧阳莎菲, first=t, j=Auyeung Sa-fay, links=no), was a Hong Kong actress. She is ...

as Master King's wife *

Nora Miao Nora Miao () (born Chan Wing-man (); 8 February 1952) is a Hong Kong film actress. She is best known for appearing in many kung fu films in the 1970s, opposite Hong Kong action movie stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Background Chan Wing-m ...

as Zhuang Meng-lan * Yen Shi-kwan as Master Li * Pearl Lin - Zhong Qiu-ping * James Tien as Fang Gang *

Eagle Han-ying Eagle Han-ying (Korean name: Kim Young Il, 김영일) was a Korean actor and martial artist, who rose his fame in South Korea through various Korean drama series from the 90. Outside of Korea, he is best known with his appearance with many kung ...

as Nan Qing * Ko Keung as Master Wing * Chui Yuen as Wing's student * Wong Kwong-yue as Wing's assistant * Chui Fat as Wing's assistant * Peng Kang as Wing's student * Wang Yao as Wing's student

Production

Like Chan's ''

Spiritual Kung Fu ''Spiritual Kung Fu'' () (Quan Jing) is a 1978 Hong Kong action martial arts film directed and produced by Lo Wei, and starring Jackie Chan and James Tien. The film also features Yuen Biao as one of the ''Master of the Five Fists'' martial ar ...

'', ''Dragon Fist'' was filmed in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

in early 1978 but was unable to be released or produced because the studio went bankrupt and was running out of money. As a result, both Lo Wei productions only had cost-cutting measures after Chan returned from his loan deal with Seasonal Films, where he made ''

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints ...

'' and ''

Drunken Master ''Drunken Master'' () is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang-lee. It was a success at the Hong Kong box office, earning two and a half times the amount o ...

'' alongside director Yuen Woo-ping. During the production, Chan reportedly had his nose broken repeatedly, joking "Do you think I was born with this nose?" Unlike most of Jackie Chan's early films, ''Dragon Fist'' had a more serious tone, with little in the way of comedic moments. Like many other Hong Kong kung fu films, the film was scored with various

musical cue In musical notation, a cue note is or cue notes are indications informing players, "of important passages being played by other instruments, uch as anentrance after a long period of rest Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * S ...

s from American films, mainly

Jerry Goldsmith Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer and conductor known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for five films in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and three in the ''Rambo'' franch ...

's 1966 score for ''

The Sand Pebbles ''The Sand Pebbles'' is a 1962 novel by American author Richard McKenna about a Yangtze River gunboat and its crew in 1926. It was the winner of the 1963 Harper Prize for fiction. The book was initially serialized in the ''Saturday Evening Po ...

''.

Box office

The film was released in Hong Kong on 21 April 1979. The film grossed 1,004,000 at the Hong Kong box office in 1979. Overseas, the film sold 103,261 tickets in

Seoul City Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the Capital city, capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the North Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea ...

(South Korea) and 142,785 tickets in France (where it was released in 1982), for a combined tickets sold overseas in Seoul and France.

Home media

* On 15 February 2001, Seven 7 released the French language theatrical version

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

entitled ''Le Poing De La Vengeance'', with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It contains no other language options. * On 22 October 2001, Eastern Heroes released the film in the UK on DVD, uncut (except for many frame-cuts). However, it's poorly cropped from 2.35:1 into 1.78:1 and only contains an English dub. * On 4 June 2002, Columbia Tri-Star released the film in the US on DVD, in Full Frame with English and

Cantonese language Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

options. However, it contains a heavily edited version produced by Aquarius Releasing (roughly 15 minutes missing) and is

dubtitle Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informa ...

d. * On 24 February 2006, Universal Japan released the film in Japan on DVD, in 2.35:1 and with a Cantonese soundtrack. This version was the first completely uncut release on DVD, however, it does not feature any English subtitles. * On 11 June 2007,

Hong Kong Legends Hong Kong Legends was a United Kingdom DVD distribution company, based in Hertfordshire and operating from the UK and Australia between 1999 and 2007. Hong Kong Legends was initially part of Medusa Communications, who, along with Soulblade bought ...

released the film in the UK on DVD, in 2.35:1 and uncut in Cantonese language with newly translated English subtitles. * In 2018, UK company 88 Films released the film on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

. It contains the original Mandarin, Cantonese, and English language tracks in mono and in a newly remastered 5.1 DTS-HD MA format. The blu-ray also contains subtitles for each track option. It is uncut and remastered in genuine HD.

References

External links

''Dragon Fist''
at Hong Kong Cinemagic * * {{Lo Wei 1979 films 1979 martial arts films Films directed by Lo Wei Hong Kong martial arts films Kung fu films 1970s Mandarin-language films Wushu films Films shot in South Korea 1970s Hong Kong films