''Dragon Fist'' (, also known as ''Dangsang Martial Arts'' or ''The Wild Big Boss'') is a 1979

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

martial arts film Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression a ...

directed by

Lo Wei Lo Wei ( 12 December 1918 – 20 January 1996) was a Hong Kong film director and actor best known for launching the martial arts film careers of both Bruce Lee, in ''The Big Boss'' and ''Fist of Fury'', and Jackie Chan, in ''New Fist of Fury''. ...

, who also Hsu Li-hwa. The film stars

Jackie Chan Fang Shilong (born Chan Kong-sang; 7 April 1954), known professionally as Jackie Chan,; is a Hong Kong actor and filmmaker, known for his slapstick, acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and innovative stunts, which he typically perf ...

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 film stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Background Chan Wing-ma ...

, James Tien, Yen Shi-kwan, Eagle Han-ying, and Wu Wen-sau. The film was released theatrically in Hong Kong on 21 April 1979.

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 Chung 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 gets 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

Production

Like Chan's ''

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

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

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

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 reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have sku ...

'' and ''

Drunken Master ''Drunken Master'' (), also known as ''Drunken Master The Beginning'', is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping and produced and co-written by Ng See-yuen. The film features much of the same crew as Yuen's '' ...

'' alongside director

Yuen Woo-ping Yuen Woo-ping (; alias: Yuen Wo-ping; born 1945) is a Hong Kong people, Hong Kong Stage combat, martial arts choreographer and film director who worked in Hong Kong action cinema and later Hollywood films. He is one of the inductees on the Avenue ...

. 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, such as an entrance after a long period of rest."McGrain, Mark (1990). ''Music Notation'', p.183. Hal ...

s from American films, mainly

Jerry Goldsmith Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator with a career in film and television scoring that spanned nearly 50 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003. He was consid ...

's 1966 score for '' The Sand Pebbles''.

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 Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

(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 French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...

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 ki ...

entitled ''Le Poing De La Vengeance'', with an

aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...

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 to 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 2:35:1 with English and

Cantonese language Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic languages, Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River ...

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

dubtitle Subtitles are texts representing the contents of the audio in a film, television show, opera or other audiovisual media. Subtitles might provide a transcription or translation of spoken dialogue. Although naming conventions can vary, captions ...

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 bough ...

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 Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

. It contains the original Mandarin, Cantonese, and English language tracks in mono and 5.1 DTS-HD MA formats. The Blu-ray also includes 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 1970s Hong Kong films 1970s Mandarin-language films Films directed by Lo Wei Films shot in South Korea Hong Kong films about revenge Hong Kong martial arts films Kung fu films Wushu films