Seven Steps Of Kung Fu (1979)

Kung-fu film with much trouble brewing in a sleepy Chinese village. A ruthless white haired general intends to take over a small town with the help of his “Five Hands Gang”. The Five Hand Gang are assembling, much to the chagrin of Master Li (Ga Hoi), who doesn’t care much for the gang and uses his plucky kung fu pupil Tiger (Ricky Cheng) for a spot of reconnaissance work. The baddies are in league with a governmental traitor played by Chen Shan in white hair and robes, so Li teaches Tiger the Seven Steps style.

Seven steps style is a sort of Snake Fist hybrid which requires Tiger to walk on his hands and crush eggs in a field) to methodically start picking off the gang one by one, before a blistering two-on-one encounter with the top dog. The acrobatics from debuting leading man Ricky Cheng are refreshing and Tommy Lee’s sterling choreography lifts a somewhat routine yarn.

There were a lot of Spaghetti Easterns churned out in the 70s and 80s, and this particular movie is good, but not great. This is product, nothing move, with the obvious intention to fill 90+ minutes of screen time and get the product into the theaters as part of a double or triple feature. Then go crank out some more, rinse, repeat….

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