''Mr. Hercules Against Karate''/''Ming, ragazzi!'' is a 1973 Italian comedy

Kung fu film Kung fu film () is a subgenre of martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema set in the contemporary period and featuring realistic martial arts. It lacks the fantasy elements seen in ''wuxia'', a related martial arts genre that uses historical ...

directed by

Antonio Margheriti Antonio Margheriti (19 September 1930 – 4 November 2002), also known under the pseudonyms Anthony M. Dawson and Antony Daisies ("daisies" is "margherite" in Italian), was an Italian filmmaker. Margheriti worked in many different genres in th ...

that was filmed in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, Sydney and

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

. Produced by Carlo Ponti, the film features

Bud Spencer Carlo Pedersoli (31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016), known professionally as Bud Spencer, was an Italian actor, professional swimmer and water polo player. He was known for action-comedy and Spaghetti Western roles with his long-time film partn ...

and

Terence Hill Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; 29 March 1939) is an Italian actor, film director, screenwriter and producer. He began his career as a child actor and gained international fame for starring roles in action and comedy films, many with longtim ...

impersonators Alberto Terracina and Fernando Bilbao in a satire of the Kung-fu craze.

Plot

The film is about Danny ( Roberto Terracina) and Percy ( Fernando Arrien) who are fired from an oil rig in Australia when Percy accidentally destroys it. They retreat to a Chinese restaurant where they meet the owner Wang who offers them $100,000 if they return his son Henshu who has been taken by Henshu's stepmother and her boyfriend, a kung fu master. The two agree and fly to Hong Kong.

Reception

Tom Milne Tom Milne (2 April 1926 – 14 December 2005) was a British film critic. See also After war service, he studied English and French at Aberdeen University and later at the Sorbonne. Interested in the theatre too, he wrote for the magazine ' ...

(

Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with ...

) gave the film a negative review, lamenting that one or two shots such as the carnival dragon in a dark alley "remind one that Margheriti has had his moments in the past as a minor-league Bava". Milne concluded that the film was "a dim carbon copy, studded with travelogue views and making heavy weather of its aimless roughhouse fights."

Cast

* Alberto Terracina ... Danny / Dino (billed as Tom Scott) * Fernando Bilbao ... Percy / Parsifal (billed as Fred Harris) * Jolina Collins ... Ai-Lan (billed as Jolina Mitchell) *

Chai Lee Chai Lee is an actress, born in Canton, China. She is best known for her appearances in British films and television, particularly her uncredited role as a Moonbase Alpha operative in the science fiction series ''Space 1999'', as Esther in '' ...

... Lee-Ping * George Wang ... Ming * Sue Chang ... Sue *

Luciano Pigozzi Luciano Pigozzi, also known professionally as Alan Collins (10 January 1927 – 14 June 2008), was an Italian character actor. A long-time staple of Italian genre cinema, Pigozzi was noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre and appeared in s ...

... Chief of Police (billed as Alan Collins)

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Hercules Against Karate 1973 films Italian comedy films Films directed by Antonio Margheriti Films shot in Sydney Films shot in Bangkok Films shot in Hong Kong Films shot in Singapore United Artists films 1970s martial arts films Kung fu films Films with screenplays by Luciano Vincenzoni Films with screenplays by Sergio Donati 1970s Italian films