Shaolin Monk or not, Gordon Liu's gonna kick some serious ass.
Heroes of the East, also known as Challenge of the Ninja, is a 1978 Martial Arts Movie directed by Lau Kar-leung, released by Shaw Brothers, starring Gordon Liu in one of his very few non-Shaolin monk roles during the "Shaolin period" of his career.
Ho Tao (Liu), a Chinese martial artist married to a Japanese karateka, Yumiko, finds himself in deep trouble after being challenged by Japanese martial arts rivals affiliated with his wife after unintentionally pissing off a Japanese challenger in what was supposed to be a friendly duel. With seven Japanese challengers in his way, led by Yumiko's former teacher Takeno who objected Yumiko's relationship with a Chinese man, Ho Tao must defeat each and every single one of them.
The movie is known for being among the few Shaw films from the late-70s to not portray the Japanese as villains - instead, they are Anti Heroes at worst - despite the setting. The movie is pretty much an Excuse Plot to showcase the martial arts skills of two different Eastern countries.
Heroes of the East contain examples of:
- Ambiguous Time Period: The film never specifies what decade it is set in but commonly assumed to be the 1930s. Which adds another layer to its Chinese-Japanese tensions.
- Bruce Lee Clone: Oddly, the Japanese master with the tonfa and nunchucks seems to be one.
- Chekhov's Gun: The sparring between Ho Tao and Yumiko, using different weapons, originally feels like a showcase of their skills in assorted martial arts, but later on it turns out Ho Tao had to counter his Japanese challengers, who uses the exact same skill in weapons he saw his wife using earlier, on him.
- Culture Clash:
- Ho Tao and Yumiko's marriage is initially hindered by this. She insists on attending her wedding with Ho according to Japanese customs, managing to offend the guests. She later has all of Ho's Chinese weapons replaced with Japanese weapons.
- Ho Tao, upon defeating Yumiko's kendo teacher who is his first challenger, is surprised to see the kendo teacher offering him the sheathed katana while kneeling over. Ho Tao refused, much to Yumiko's horror... later that night he finds out from Yumiko that he had unintentionally offended the Japanese by refusing to accept the katana as a token of accepting their defeat, and now every Japanese martial artist is out to challenge him.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Ho Tao wins most of his duels with little difficulty, with only the judo and ninjutsu masters giving him trouble.
- David vs. Goliath: The karate master challenging Ho Tao, who is at least a head taller and several times larger, being the Goliath. Ho Tao had to formulate a better way to defeat this hulking opponent, which he countered using his speed.
- There is also the fight with the Judo master who also towers over him, which unfortunately turned out to be a more comedic fight than a showcase of grappling, since Ho Tao's friends managed to rub him in peanut oil so he could avoid being grabbed (the film justifies this since the judo guy decided to challenge him at midnight instead of the middle of the day, with Ho Tao not being fully rested).
- Drunken Boxing: What Ho Tao uses to battle the karate expert.
- Ho Tao actually learns this the day before by having his servants fight the legendary master Beggar So
(played by the director) and observing his movements.
- Ho Tao actually learns this the day before by having his servants fight the legendary master Beggar So
- Dual Wielding: If a weapon can be dual-wielded, it will. There's Ho Tao using twin Butterfly knives, tonfas, clubs, and then there's his Japanese challengers who use sais, kusarigamas, and the like.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The film's foreign subtitle is Challenge of the Ninja. Guess who turns out to be Ho Tao's final opponent?
- Faux Action Girl: Yumiko also practices Japanese martial arts, but is pretty much sidelined after the Japanese masters come to challenge Ho Tao.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Takeno, the final challenger Ho Tao needs to defeat, turns out to be trained in the art of ninjutsu, and uses various ninja weaponry to challenge Ho Tao, as well as spending the entire fight clad in ninja robes.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: The battle against the karate master. Despite both sides having weapons, Ho Tao and the challenger fights with their fists.
- Master of All: Ho Tao and Takeno who utilize multiple fighting styles and weapons and prove better than the designated masters of each individual martial art.
- Nobody Can Die: Enforced trope - allegedly during filming of the movie, the director, Lau Kar-leung, insisted that the film's onscreen bodycount to be zero, despite the usage of various deadly weapons throughout the film. Which makes sense, since the weapon duels in the film are meant as a showcase of both countries' respective skills, instead of being used for killing intents.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Initially, Ho Tao is absolutely against his family putting him through the arranged marriage with the Japanese Koda family, but after meeting Yumiko Koda ("Kung Zi" in Mandarin) for the first time, he started having second thoughts. Ho Tao and Yumiko ultimately ends up together as happily as they can be after the marriage, though not without a few bumps along the way.
- Run the Gauntlet: After unintentionally pissing off Yumiko's former school, Ho Tao ends up fighting every elite expert of the Japanese school, all of them which are eager to beat the snot out of him. Downplayed in a way that the Japanese are willing to send their challenges one at a time - so after defeating an opponent, Ho Tao had at least a day to rest and prepare for the following day's fight.
- She Is All Grown Up: Apparently, Yumiko wasn't much of a looker as a child, and Ho Tao tries to avoid their Arranged Marriage, until he finally sees she's grown quite beautiful.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Ho Tao and Yumiko, all the time. Their bonding consists almost entirely of arguing the superiority between Chinese and Japanese weaponry, and then whipping out said weapons to fight each other, before making up after concluding their battle.
- Stock Ninja Weaponry: Upon Yumiko's first arrival into the Ho family, she brought along with her a massive crate of her own "equipment"... which turns out to be assorted collection of ninja weapons, including the nihonto, katana, kusarigama, various shuriken, a kama, several kunai, and the like. And then there are the challengers from the Japanese school, who uses sais, makibishi, smoke bombs, etc.
- Stock Wushu Weapons: Ho Tao uses a variety of these during his duels, firstly when sparring with his wife, and then against the Japanese challengers. The dao, jian, qiang, Butterfly swords, and three-sectioned staff notably gets the spotlight.
- Sword Fight: One of the first sparring between Ho Tao and Yumiko, where the latter draws her katana after the former pulls out a jian. Later in the film, Ho Tao had to fight another katana expert, but this time he uses a dao instead.
- Token Evil Teammate: While evil is a stretch, the Judo master is only one to exploit a loophole in the agreement that Ho Tao’s challengers would come for him one day at a time, by challenging him at midnight. He does however leave peacefully when he is defeated.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Implied with Takeno, who laments he spent so much time practicing martial arts that he missed his chance to marry Yumiko.
- Wall of Weapons: Shows up in the Ho family's main hall. Of the wushu variety.
- Worthy Opponent: At the end of the movie, Ho Tao and all the Japanese masters, with Ho Tao thanking them for their demonstration and making peace with the kenjutsu master by finally accepting his sword.
