The Big Fellow [龍虎地頭蛇] (1973)
Starring Charles Heung, Suen Ga-Lam, Chen Ming-Li, Tsai Hung, Cliff Ching Ching, Hsu Tian-De, Leung Fung, Lam Chung, Yeung Fui-Yuk, Ching Kau-Lung, Lee Yung-Wai
Directed by Wu Min-Hsiung
Expectations: None. I guess I expect the fellow to be big, but beyond that…
1973 was a great year for Hong Kong films, but that’s no thanks to The Big Fellow. It’s not that it’s especially bad, it’s just incredibly generic. There is absolutely no attempt to develop the main character; he is merely a dude that knows kung fu who wants a job. That’s literally all we ever know about this guy! They don’t develop the other people either, but for a main character I thought it was quite a feat to go through 90 minutes and still only know the one thing you learn about the guy in the first minute. To say The Big Fellow isn’t intellectually stimulating is a major understatement. The film exists purely to guide this shapeless character through a series of fights, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing in a kung fu movie, it’s hard to sit through 90 minutes of that when the choreography is less than stellar.
There is a story here, though, it’s not much of one, but it is present. Basically, our hero gets a job on the docks and he angers the triad guys there, so they frame him for murder. Pretty standard stuff. It also rips off The Big Boss a bit by having a big boss orchestrating everything that must be defeated at the end. The major difference is that the big boss here is present throughout nearly the entire film. The film also seems to be titled after him, but when you plug the film title’s Chinese characters into the always completely accurate Google Translate it comes out as Dragon and Tiger Snakes. I’m gonna guess the English title was mistranslated/specifically changed to emulate The Big Boss.