Freedom Strikes a Blow (1973)

Shen Wei-Ta has been training in kung fu and developed some skills, whilst dating his sifu's daughter. One night her drunken brother picks a fight and winds up dead. Shen flees, horrified at what he has done, and swears never to fight again. He takes a job as a coolie at a dock, where things are already pretty rough for the workers even before the triads decide they want the dock and the workers are surplus to requirements.

The film is obviously influenced by The Big Boss and on the big picture level the story is quite similar, though character motivations are better written and reactions more believable here... even if the film inexplicably undermines its own narrative towards the end.

Overall I'd say it's a better film, with the very large caveat that Michael Chan is not Bruce Lee. He's not bad as a lead, despite looking too scrawny to be a particularly fearsome fighter - particularly when pitted against Bolo Yeung (whose popularity in the West gives the film it's alternate title Chinese Hercules), but he doesn't have Bruce's magnetic charisma or entrancing physicality.

If THE BIG BOSS is a bad film with a good Bruce Lee performance, FREEDOM STRIKES A BLOW is a decent film with several decent performances. It has neither the highs or the lows, but maintains a more consistent average and is directed with more style (despite an obviously low budget) than Lo Wei's effort.

A number of future stars can be spotted amongst the cast, such as Cory Yuen and Yuen Biao, who help Jackie Chan put together some well thought out fights with realistic martial arts. Yuen Wo-Ping is also credited as an assistant action director, so the film was seemingly something of a proving ground for quite a lot of young talent.

Unfortunately the version I watched is in poor shape, with large sections of the Mandarin audio replaced with the English dub - this harms several fight scenes where characters are clearly vocalising but the soundtrack is barren. I'd love to see a restoration, but being an indie film from a small production company who knows what materials survive now, or who owns the rights to them.