Cast Member: Yuen Tak

It is a diverting 90 minutes with a few well constructed scenes scattered throughout, but this hardly compensates for its waste of potential.

Mainstream Hong Kong cinema has often embraced the bizarre and the baffling, but ‘Demon Of The Lute’ may be a step too far for many.

‘Dragon from Russia’ is best described as a group of excellent fight sequences strung together by a rather muddled plot and some curious casting.

It not only shows that Yuen Biao can still bust a move, but is one of the late 90’s better dramatic action movies.

The same lead duo and director had given audiences the wildly uneven ‘Fast Fingers’ the year before, but whereas that was entertaining, ‘I Will Finally Knock You Down, Dad!’ is a bit of a slog.

The real draw, and the skill of Chor Yuen, is to make an ensemble of eccentrics, oddball antagonists and superheroes appealing and a means of covering up the unapologetic holes in the narrative.

If you’re a fan of Biao or Sammo, this will make an unremarkable, but enjoyable addition to your collection; if you’re indifferent to either, the chances are you will feel the same about this film.

Director Chan Siu Pang has crafted something that would be considered quite an achievement by many critics – an intelligent and exciting kung fu film.

Though containing enough reasons to warrant a viewing, ‘The Master’ is still not as polished as the better films being made by the studio at the time.

At times frustrating and yet mostly entertaining, ‘The Myth’ may not be vintage Chan, but there are glimpses here of a performer who is still a valuable treasure for world cinema.

It has a fairly optimistic aim of being a comedy ‘Detective Dee’ and while it might not quite achieve a happy union between its components this is an undemanding distraction.