I thought I was aware of nearly all of the Shaw Brothers action catalogue and then a film called ‘Crazy Nuts of Kung Fu’ turns up in a recent boxset. And Lee Tso Nam, who would go on to be one of the leading names in independent martial arts cinema, is at the helm, making me doubly intrigued.
A taciturn bandit attempts to rob a stranger without realising that his target is every bit as wily as himself. The supposed victim, a crafty gambler, gets the better of the exchange and runs off with the bandit’s money, fleeing to the nearest town with his ill-gotten gains. After meeting up again – and more than a couple of confrontations between the two – the bandit and gambler agree to combine their brawn and brains in a pursuit of a bigger target. Neither fully trusts the other, but they learn to put their differences aside to con a corrupt warlord out of his riches.
This is the classic conceit of two anti-heroes forming a very unstable alliance, something familiar to fans of films like ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’. As it focuses on two characters that are hardly likeable, it requires skilled writing and deft direction to pull it off. Lee Tso Nam is a more than adequate director, but with ‘Crazy Nuts of Kung Fu’ he fails to elicit much interest in his protagonists; the gambler, played by Ling Yun, is insufferable for half of the film and his way of double-crossing his partner at every turn makes you wonder why he hasn’t received a slap around the head. That balance of anti-heroes that are still somehow appealing is diminished by a very episodic first half of the film.
The second half of the story becomes more dramatic and though the change in motivations for the pair is rushed, it becomes the more interesting part of the film. It also sees an increase in the quality of the action which goes from flailing arms to something more substantial. The finale offers a solid conclusion to a production that has promise but never quite delivers on it – ‘Crazy Nuts of Kung Fu’ is never really the kung-fu buddy film you hope it will be.
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