Kung-fu princess versus Evil Wizard
A teenage princess learns kung fu so that she can return from exile inside a magic mountain to claim her kingdom from usurpers. On beautiful Phoenix Island, the Golden City is ruled by a kind and benevolant emperor and his three loyal guards who have combined their skills into an unbeatable form of kung-fu. One day the Golden City is attacked by General Black and his evil wizard, who storm the palace. With a number of notable exceptions, the plots of many of the kung-fu films being churned out in the 1970s were fairly standard. Often productions went forward with only the most basic outline of a script (usually based on Chinese Legend or stories performed in Peking Opera), which is why many of the plots usually boil down to basic revenge stories. It’s always interesting, therefore, when productions have a bit more ambition in their story, and Return Of The Kung-Fu Dragon certainly has some ambition – though it is throttled significantly by weak production values and editing
10,000 fist pump sound effects? Check. Ultra goofball character with more slapstick comedy than a normal person can tolerate? x10. Old dude with super beard who uses it in his King-Fu style? Check. Character development? Non-existent. Cheesy sets? To the max. Pure fun… the way I could do it with my own home camera and a small band of boot-stompin’ Fu fighters – Dr. T. Roy Brown
Director: Chi-Lien Yu
Starring: Lingfeng Shangguan, Chung Chien Li, Sing Chen
