Dirty Ho

Fine Art Prince

Dirty Ho
aka Lan tou He
Hong Kong 1979
Directed by Chia-Liang Liu
Shaw Brothers/Celestial Pictures
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Dirty Ho starts off with an opening credits sequence depicting the two main protagonists, Wang Tsun Hsin played by Gordon Liu and ‘Dirty’ Ho played by Yue Wong, fighting an abstract battle against many people against a white studio background, as the two fight side by side and protect themselves from hordes of combatants who mean them harm... serving as a metaphor for various action sequences much later in the movie. Unfortunately, it’s also scored with some excruciatingly inappropriate De Wolf library needle drop which, yeah, kind of put me off a little, it has to be said.

Then we get dropped into the story, as black market jewel trader Ho and upmarket, generally honest but ‘cunning and hiding something very important’ Wang, come into rivalry on a pleasure boat, as they each try to one up the other with the number of girls they can retain at their tables with various high value bribes. When it all ends badly for Ho and he is cheated out of his own ill gotten gains, he tracks down Wang but always seems to come a cropper of bad luck. Whether it’s a big fight with ‘The Handicapped Four’, all who turn out to be quite able bodied after all, in a parody sequence poking fun at Crippled Avengers (reviewed here) or one of many spectacular set pieces where Wang pretends he’s hired one of the escorts, Crimson, as his body guard, manipulating her arms and legs (and lute) as he pretends she is fighting Ho, coming out on top when s/he splits his forehead with a venom filled sword cut... it’s all quite fun stuff.

When Ho can’t find a cure for the big, ugly thing brewing on his head as a result of that fight, he eventually ends up becoming Wang’s disciple/slave so he receives a daily antidote which will eventually cure his condition. However, after a number of reveals, Ho slowly falls in with what’s going on and realises Wang is the eleventh of fourteen princes who is supposed to return to the palace at some point so the emperor can announce who will inherit his throne. The princes are trying to stop each other from being there, especially Wang, who does need to be there but is only really interested in living a life outside with fine art, good wine and the pursuit of martial arts. Ho falls in with him and, when Wang is wounded in one leg, allows Wang to train him and develop his kung fu skills so he can be a better bodyguard and help him return to the palace at the required time.

And it’s a fun film filled with elaborate set pieces. There are a couple of scenes where various people try to kill Wang in social situations without Wang or his opponent letting on that they know. What are best described as battles of social manners when, for instance, the tasting of eleven fine wines becomes a low key but no less spectacular acrobatic affair where wines are served and tasted by each as they dodge each other’s killing hands and feet, keeping up the pretence of a social situation. Similarly, there’s more of the same where the study of some fine art prints and scrolls turns into a battle against people wearing ‘Rosa Klebb’ style shoes with retracting blades (note to a regular reader... not blades retracting from George Lucas' butt though, okay?).

There’s also a great scene where, with Wang being wheeled through the land by Ho on a pushcart, the two manage to survive an attack by a battalion (including many archers) in a long action scene not unlike the kind you would get in the Lone Wolf And Cub movies (which I need to revisit again on Blu Ray real soon, I think). There’s also the inevitable training sequence with a ‘revert to type’ set of scenes where Ho is taught how to improve his kung fu skills by kicking targets while balancing little candles in small bowls on his shoulders, burning himself with wax whenever he gets something wrong to train his body. So yeah, while the film does kinda poke fun, tongue-in-cheek style, at some of the conventions of the genre up until this point, it also uses those very conventions and genre tropes to do it... which I guess would make sense.

Once again, just like in Heroes Of The East (reviewed here) and a few others, the director allows the moving camera to get right into the action with the cast, making for a dynamic series of combat sequences (not to mention lengthy ones), which pull you into the centre of things and, well, it’s an alternate way of doing it and I guess it does allow you to cheat a little in terms of breaking the fight down into shorter sequences rather than pull back and do longer takes from a static shot set up, but the technique works well and the skill and expertise of the performers... all of whom perhaps belong in a circus, as is the nature of the characters in these films... is such that you certainly don’t think any less of the brilliant fight choreography and the enthusiasm with which it is brought to life.

And that’s me done with both Dirty Ho, another of these movies I would gladly recommend but, also, with Arrow’s ShawScope Volume 1 Blu Ray set, of which this is the twelfth and final movie in the box, followed by two CD compilations of the soundtracks from six of them, all of them needle drop tracks from the De Wolff music library. However, if you are liking some of my Shaw Brothers movie reviews, fear not, I still have a few stand alone titles to watch and there’s also a second Shaw Scope volume being released* of these fairly soon (and which will surely have been released by the time this review makes it onto this blog so, yeah, more to come soon, I would say).

*Actually, since writing the first draft of this review a year or more ago, I have the second Shawscope set and four additional Shout Factory Shaw Brothers Classics box sets to watch and review too (so somewhere around 60 moives) plus, as of a couple of weeks ago, the announcement of ShawScope Vol 3 on the horizon. So, yeah, although there may not be as many Shaw Brothers reviews on here in the next month or so, there will be a fair few Golden Harvest reviews coming too (if you like early MIchelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock movies, keep an eye out) and, you can rest assured, the Shaw Brothers will certainly be returning to this blog at some point in the near future... at least that's the plan.