Along Comes the Tiger (1977)

Silence is a virtue?

Don Wong Tao played the silent fighter seeking revenge for his father's murder. Woe to all the tributaries of the Black Dragon Gang as he rampaged his way across the evil doer's territory.

Along Comes the Tiger was a flawed but entertaining kung fu movie. With the twist of a mute hero avenging the death of his father by the infamous Black Dragon, it slightly set itself apart from the crowd. Theoretically based on Once Upon a Time in the West, which I'll have to take it on faith, because aside from a couple of scenes I didn't notice the western influences.

Miracle Man's first fight with a young Phillip Ko Fei was entertaining due to the fact that the bad guy's character was OCD. Suffice to say, Miracle Man messed him up much to the baddie's chagrin.

Doris Lung Chun Erh fought Miracle Man with her female gang, wielding fans with daggers hidden within. Stephen Tung who was the martial arts director for many movies played a government agent trying to clean up the gangs. He appeared and disappeared seemingly at random. A little boy attached himself to Miracle Man in a role meant to bring out the compassionate side of MM but instead was annoying. MM had only one goal in life and that was to take out the Black Dragon Gang's leader. When someone is rampaging in a kung fu movie, not much will stop the carnage.

Stephen Tung and Don Wong did an acceptable job with their fights and acting. One scene with a couple of minions was quite well choreographed. Director Wu Ma showed up to try and take on the MM as well, and as always, he was entertaining to watch. Gam Ming aka Tommy Lee played the dastardly Black Dragon, a humpbacked martial arts master. He also choreographed the fights for the movie. For the most part, most of them were quite well done. I only found the final one a bit of a letdown.

The acting was slightly above what you might expect from what appeared to be a low budget film. Don Wong Tao's character seemed to benefit from playing it silent. The only drawback for me was the kid, though it seemed they were trying to bring things full circle since MM had witnessed his father's death. The story had some weird lapses of logic, especially where the female characters were concerned. If you can overlook the shortcomings there was decent kung fu flick to be watched.

For martial arts movie fans, particularly older ones, this might be one to give a try sometime. It was non-stop action from beginning to end and didn't feel like each fight was a duplicate of the others.

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