Review of Eastern Condors (1987) by Brian P — 06 Dec 2006

I love martial arts movies but it's not the easiest of genres to get into. I'd recommend Eastern Condors as a way in. First off it's a hybrid; a war movie (specifically The Dirty Dozen) filtered through the mind of director/star Sammo Hung. Sammo started out learning chinese opera at the school run by sifu Yu Jim Yuen and was a member of a troupe known as 'the seven little fortunes'. This troupe also featured Jackie Chan, Yuen Mo, Yuen Kwai (now a director under the name Corey Yuen) and Eastern Condors co-stars Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah. It's been a persistent misconception that all these Yuen's are related, in fact it was a mark of respect for Yu Jim Yuen that all his students adopted a Yuen name (Sammo's was Yuen Lung, Jackie's Yuen Lo).

Anyway, enoguh background. Eastern Condors features Sammo as the leader of a group of criminals recruited by Army officer Lam Ching Ying (another Chinese Opera graduate) to destroy a weapons dump in Vietnam before the vietcong (led by Yuen Wah) can get their hands on it. The group parachutes into the jungle to rendez vous with vietnamese guerillas (led by Sammo's real life wife Joyce Godenzi) and that's really where the fun begins.

While it's missing Jackie Chan (who was filming Project A Part 2, a sequel that sorely misses Sammo and Yuen Biao, who both appeared in the first film) one of the great strengths of Eastern Condors is the all star cast. Sammo put in a huge amount of work before this film, always famous as the fat kung fu star he lost a lot of weight so he'd be able to execute the complicted moves and flying kicks he wanted for this movie. He looks different; not fat, just substantial. Yuen Biao's wiry shape alway lent itself to acrobatics and here he executes some absolutely breathtaking moves, even when he's not fighting Biao is incapable of moving with out real grace. Yuen Wah had created the robotic movement of his bad guy character for an earlier film, which had flopped, he revisits it here and creates a truly memorable villain (so much so that he'd all but reprise the role for Dragons Forever a couple of years on). Lam Ching Ying doesn't, sadly, have a lot of fighting to do but, always the best actor in Sammo's stock company, he turns in an effective performance as the officer who is growing conflicted about his mission. It's strange to see Haing S Ngor in this film (he plays the mad brother of Lam Ching Ying's CO) but interessting to note that, by dint of his work in The Killing Fields, he may go down as the only Oscar winning actor to have appeared in a chinese kung-fu movie.

The action, as you'd expect from Sammo, takes precedence over everything and it's among the best he's ever executed. The gunfights are strong but it's the martial arts that you come for and from Joyce Godenzi's knife wielding guerilla to the opera brothers everyone impresses. The best fights are, as ever, saved for the final sequence when first Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah have an astonishing fight; Wah really impressing with his blinding speed, not for nothing was he Bruce Lee's acrobatics double and then Sammo and Yuen Wah having the final face off.

Typically of Sammo the action is bloody and brutal and nobody is spared. Godenzi may inflict a blow in her first scene which will make everyone wince but that doesn't save her character from an exceedingly nasty fate in the final scene.

While the action is the focus (and who'd want it any other way?) there's more than enough drama in the story to keep you watching. A scene at VC outpost makes you wonder if John Woo was taking notes for his brilliant Bullet in the Head which came out about three years later and there are good perfomances from Lam Ching Ying, Sammo and Joyce Godenzi which also hold the attention.

Eastern Condors blend of brilliant martial arts action and the war films familliar to western audiences provide an excellent entrance to a much maligned genre. I highly recommend it.