The Fearless Young Boxer (1979)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Masterful Movie

Excellent but underrated film

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Father and son (Peter Chang Chi-Long) are walking and father spots his enemy, Casanova Wong. CW wants a gold plate and information. They fight and dad is killed. The son has no kung fu. Soon after the kid is learning kung fu along with a girl. While street performing the kid spots CW. His teacher warns him it is too soon for revenge and to keep training. Later Lee Kwan does a disco dance to win the affection of the girl but she is not interested. Going for wine our guy meets Stumpy who picks his pocket for the gold plate. CW suspects our guy but needs to provoke him to fight as if that would establish his identity. After being kicked out of the troupe he hooks up with the fortune teller to continue to learn martial arts. There is inconsistency regarding how Casanova Wong could possibly know Peter Chang and vice versa. Since this is dubbed in English that might be the problem instead. Regardless the viewer easily can see it will all come down to a final fight between the two and the incidences in the middle seem to only delay the confrontation not build any suspense or other plot structure. Despite that it never gets so far as to drag as many small fights keep the action going.Chan Wai-Lau gets killed off by Casanova Wong before the final fight but he is an actor worthy of mention. He played in over 100 movies mostly as a fighting stunt man (including a good Simon Yuen knock off) despite his small size. In fact, because of his small size he even played an old lady. The fights in this movie were all good. In addition to the good choreography and execution each fight had moves emphasizing the personality of the fighters and the story situation. That extra bit makes the difference between just another fight scene and something memorable. This movie goes even further with the use of the set in the final fight. Typically the final fight in a martial arts movie would be on top a dusty hill or some other featureless landscape. In years to come Jackie Chan would use set pieces for his final fights. I now wonder if this movie was the first use ever. Here the barn is used as part of the fight, the bags of grain, the ropes, the poles, the rafters, and such are all part of the fight choreography.I rate this above average and recommend it for all fans of the genre.

I found METHOD MAN (aka THE FEARLESS YOUNG BOXER, aka AVENGING BOXER) to be a rather humdrum period fu film enlivened by a great, above average climax. This production was shot in Taiwan like a number of the cheaper Hong Kong kung fu movies and features a few familiar faces in an otherwise dullish cast.The film opens with the erstwhile Casanova Wong essaying the role of an unbeatable villain who murders an opponent. His victim's son, played by Peter Chang, swears vengeance and joins up with an acrobat group in order to train in the martial arts. What follows is an hour of comedy and training, slightly below-par stuff if I'm honest, and overly familiar by genre standards. A couple of fights are included to remind you how tough and bad Wong is.Things pick up for a lengthy and compelling fight scene set in a barn. Chang teams up with a female fighter to bring Wong down once and for all, but it's not going to be easy. This extended fight is the only part of the film to get excited about and it doesn't disappoint; Wong is virtually indestructible and Chang has to employ his acrobatic tricks in order to stand a chance. It's much like the two-on-one barn fight at the end of Jackie's DRAGON LORD and although not as good as the fight in that film, it's still the best thing about METHOD MAN.

Fearless Young Boxer, aka Method Man, aka The Avenging Boxer I enjoyed this film more than the other reviewers. Peter Chang (Chen) is an underrated actor whose acrobatic ability matches Yuen Biao in many ways. The fight scenes are well done, showing off Casanova's amazing kicks and the final fight scene in the warehouse is surely one of the best ever filmed (a worthy rival to OUATC I). The plot is simplistic : Shao Lung (Peter Chen) joins an acrobat troupe to improve his kung fu skills in order to take on the merciless killer, Wu Pa Feng (Casanova), who took his father's life in a duel over a badge bestowing leadership on a criminal group, and I agree the humour is crudely done but just watch these guys in action.

There is not much of an story. Only the usealy kung fu revenge plot, and, also quite common for these kind of movies very thin, characters. But what's even worse, there is a lot of very dumb and simple "humour" in the first hour of the film. After the first hour however the movie gets beter quikly! The last 30 minutes are just great fightscenes which make up for the disapointing first hour. And an absolute highpoint is ofcourse the last ficht in which Shao Long and Shao Ling team up to fight the contractkiller who killed Shao Long's father, this fight is staged in an old barn and reminded me a bit to the last fight in Once upon a time in China ! Only for kung fu fanatics I think.