Xing mu zi gu huo zhao
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Joe Cheung
Film Details
Synopsis
In a small town somewhere in 19th-century China, two brothers, each using their own particular style of martial arts, defeat a bully of a fighter who is terrorizing the town. In the ensuing celebration, a debate among the townspeople arises over which of the brothers has the best style, and the brothers become bitter rivals, neither of which is willing to admit that the other is his equal. Each sets up a martial arts school in the town. Years pass. A rich stranger comes to town with his two sons, and he places them in the two martial arts schools: One son in one school, and the other son in the other school. He vows to return in two years to test their knowledge. Meanwhile: Kung Fu Ching is a local boy in the town, and Ching is an unabashed martial arts fanatic who is trying to develop his own style of kung fu. He meets up with a wandering winemaker who also knows a lot of kung fu, and who encourages Ching to study more than one style of martial arts. Ching begins attending the martial arts school set up by the two feuding brothers mentioned above. They find out and kick him out of both schools. In desperation, he turns to the wandering winemaker and asks the winemaker to teach him his style of kung fu. After two years, the rich stranger returns to the town, and confesses that he is the brother of the bully the two brothers defeated years ago, and he has come to exact revenge. His two "sons" were merely spies he hired to provide him with information about the kung fu style of the two brothers. He handily defeats the two brothers individually, but when they toss aside their differences, they manage to do slightly better. But it takes the timely arrival of Kung Fu Ching to hand the rich stranger the defeat he so richly deserves... ...at which point the original bully arrives with eight henchmen. He's spent the all his time since his unfortunate defeat training in new styles of kung fu. Kung Fu Ching runs back to his master, and they prepare for the final showdown...