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When Jackie Chan meets John Woo...

The Hand Of Death a.k.a. Countdown To Kung Fu is a 1976 Martial Arts Movie directed by John Woo, one of Woo's earlier efforts note ; and notably the first film to star all Three Dragons of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao, before either of them are famous.

It's the late Qing Dynasty, where ruthless Manchurian warlords rules the land with tyranny; the Shaolin sect opposes the tyrants, but they are flushed out by a ruthless traitor, the ex-Shaolin disciple Shih Shao-Feng and his overweight, buck-toothed right-hand man Du Ching (Sammo Hung in an early role as the secondary villain), leading their armies in wiping out entire populations of the Shaolin sect to remove any opposition to Shao-Feng's rule.

In a remote Shaolin training camp, a young warrior named Yun Fei is given the task to put a stop to Shao-Feng's reign. After a botched assassination attempt, with Yun Fei barely escaping with his life, he meets a band of allies, including Tan Fung the blacksmith (played by Jackie Chan who's lucky enough to score a bigger role than the other two "dragons"), an unnamed swordsman who calls himself "The Wanderer" and have a fear of drawing his blade after a past incident, and a scholar (played by the director, Woo himself) who's a messenger to the capital city and the one person capable of exposing the truth behind the tyranny to the Imperial Court. Soon enough, it's up to the ragtag group to take on Shao-Feng.

Unrelated to the murder trope.


Time to Countdown on the Tropes of Kung Fu:

  • Accidental Murder: What causes the Wanderer to be wary of drawing his sword in the past; in a failed attempt to kill Shao-Feng, the Wanderer accidentally killed a Hooker with a Heart of Gold named Autumn Moon (which Shao-Feng used as a Human Shield). It turns him into The Atoner for the rest of the film.
  • Band of Brothels: A whorehouse appears in the Wanderer's Troubled Backstory Flashback. As it turns out, the Wanderer had planned to ambush Shao-Feng who's currently with his personal harem, only to fail and accidentally kill his lover, the hooker Autumn Moon.
  • Big Bad: Shih Shao-Feng, the former Shaolin warrior turned traitor, who is leading massacre of entire temples and crushing everyone opposing his rule.
  • Blade on a Rope: One of the eight lieutenants uses a rope dart, and he's among the better fighters that even managed to wound Tan Feng in the climax.
  • Blood from the Mouth: In the climax, you realize the heroes are finally, finally, finally winning when Shao-Feng starts coughing up blood during his fight against Yun Fei. Granted, it takes three Diving Kicks to the skull for that to happen...
  • The Dragon: Du Ching, the second-in-command of Shao-Feng, and also one hell of a Fat Bastard abusing his prisoners. Hey, it's Sammo Hung as a villain here.
  • Dual Wield: One of Shao-Feng's lieutenants uses twin jians, and oddly enough is the only character in the whole film to use two weapons at once.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: All the main heroes, basically. Yu Fei, Tan Feng and the Wanderer went from fighters on the same side to bonding over their past and sharing their goals in taking down Shao-Feng. It may be an early John Woo film, but the director's usage of themes involving brotherhood and bonding are already present.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs:
    • Yun Fei is as adept at fighting with his bare hands as he is with using weapons. At least two of Shao-Feng's eight lieutenants also fights exclusively using their fists, despite their colleagues being armed.
    • The final battle, once Yun Fei and Shao-Feng disarms each other. They then continue the last stages of their martial arts brawl with their bare hands with Yun Fei winning.
  • It's Personal: While the heroes have their own reasons to oppose Shao-Feng and his lieutenants one reason or another, for Tan Fung his personal beef is against two of them - the one with a chain-dart and another with twin swords, because those two are the ones who killed Tan Fung's brother years ago. In the final battle when the two lieutenants tries catching up to the heroes, Tan Fung purposely tells his allies to go on while he deals with them. Tan Fung wins, avenging his brother, but was mortally injured in the subsequent fight.
  • Martial Arts Staff: The preferred weapon of Yun Fei early on, where he'll use his staff to beat up enemies. But after meeting Tan Fung, the blacksmith proves the impracticality of using a blunt staff as a weapon by breaking it before crafting a replacement metal staff for Yun Fei.
    Tan Fung: "Your staff is wood. His (Shao-Feng) sword is metal."
  • The Load: The scholar, as played by John Woo, who unfortunately proves to be the useless civilain the heroes have to take care because of his status as the sole Non-Action Guy in a kung-fu movie. He needs to be constantly looked after in the ending duel, and both Tan Fung and the Wanderer gave up their lives to save him at different points.
  • Mook Lieutenant: Shao-Feng have his own legion of eight Elite Mooks as his personal vanguard, who frequently leads his lesser soldiers around.
  • Mutual Kill: Tan Fung and his last onscreen kill, the second spear-wielding lieutenant. When the enemy spearman tries attacking the scholar, Tan Fung pulls a Heroic Sacrifice and get himself skewered, but in his death throes managed to throw his own spear at the villain. Both of them succumbs to their respective injuries.
  • Neck Snap: More than one enemy mook suffers this fate, but notably Yun Fei managed to avenge his fellow Shaolin comrades by twisting Shao-Feng's neck with his legs.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Tan Fung, the blacksmith and local simpleton who spends most of the film being bossed around by soldiers or berated by Shao-Feng's lieutenants. Truth is, his idiocy is a front for him to get close to the villains in order to avenge his brother killed by Shao-Feng in the past.
  • Training Montage: Like every good kung-fu film, this one has the bonding moments between Yun Fei, Tan Feng and the Wanderer, prior to their climatic battle.
  • Unwilling Suspension: Yun Fei suffers this fate from being hung by his legs after his initial capture and put through Cold-Blooded Torture; he still managed to escape by undoing the knot around his ankles with his teeth.
  • Vertigo Effect: Being one of John Woo's earlir efforts, Woo himself is still experimenting with a number of filming techniques. The vertigo zoom is notaably utilized in several fight scenes, including a zoom-in on Yun Fei before he executes Shao-Feng.
  • Villain Opening Scene: What better way to introduce the film's villains, than having Shao-Feng's army ambush a resistance hideout in one of the Shaolin Temples, with Shao-Feng and Du-Ching personally leading the attack? And having Shao-Feng personally beat the elderly Shaolin abbot to death with his bare hands?
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Yun Fei in the finale, when he removes his shirt and fights Shao-Feng with his abs exposed.
  • Weapon Tombstone: The film ends with a shot of the graves of Tan Feng and the Wanderer, marked respectively by their spear and sword.

Alternative Title(s): Hand Of Death 1976, Countdown To Kung Fu

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