The Crippled Masters.
written by Mark - october 28 - 2003
Scene: two ugly Chinese beggars with stolen video cameras sitting outside of shoddily constructed teahouse in outer Hong Kong, 1961.
BEGGAR 1: Xu Shang, we are so poor. My family, we only have one pair of pants, and we all have to share it. My father works 20 hour days selling our family heirlooms for food. My mother, she picks rice from sunup to sundown. And my little sister, why, she whores herself to Big Boss’ thugs! All of this, and we are still poor!
BEGGAR 2: Lin Wo, I feel your pain, for my family lives under very similar conditions. I don’t like living like dog, so that is why I steal camera. I figure, if we can sell these, maybe we can pay Big Boss’ outrageous taxes!
(fight breaks out next to their table)
FIGHTER 1: My monkey kung fu is MUCH stronger than yours! I’ll show you by beating you up!
FIGHTER 2: I dare you! My mantis technique will destroy you!
(while the patrons fight, Xu Shang and Lin Wo film the fight, then sell the tapes to America, because Americans buy anything. When other Chinese people heard their rags to riches story, every idiot in Hong Kong with two hands and some speed stole a camera and directed a kung fu movie. Not one of them had an ounce of talent. Until Joe Law…)
You must use your mehntul, not physikuwl.
Joe Law’s only directorial credits are “The Crippled Masters,” a movie about two guys who work for a really mean Boss with a permanent scab on his face who gets mad and cripples them. In 1982, this movie hit American audiences on cable television, and Ted Turner earned another $60 billion dollars, and then he lost it all because of AOL. (That’s such a pop-culture reference that was DYING to happen. ROTFL) My first viewing was in 2001, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. I know I’m not making much sense now, but put your faith in me, and I shall guide you to eternal understanding…
First, I’ll introduce the characters. This is SO Jon’s “Blind Fist Of Bruce” now, but, 533í|\|6 @5 ]-[0\/\/ Î @m 50 1337, Ï ©0µ1dñ7 4055ìþ1ý ß @ 4053®!!!1
The Cast
The Good Guys
Li Ho
Tang
Old Man
Ah Po
The Bad Guys
Lin Chang Kun
Black
White
Mr. Pow
Wrapping one’s head around “The Crippled Masters” is like understanding that fucking Architect scene in “The Matrix Reloaded.” You have to watch it so many god damned times it makes your eyes bleed. The movie starts out with a guy, Li Ho, getting his arms chopped off for some unknown reason. I think he peed his pants at a dinner and brought shame to his boss’ family or something. Those Chinese fellers shore do have some funny customs. Anyway, even after surgery with an axe, he’s left with an eight inch nub on his left side that has half a baby arm on it, and two really fucked up excuses for fingers. A guy in red, Tang, tells him that if he mixes him with water he gets a delicious orange drink that’s great for camping. Plus he says that he broke the rules, which is why he had his arms chopped off. Then a guy with really huge eyebrows looks really mean, and we see Li Ho fall down some stairs.
“Next we’rr get that fat, red beverage ferrow.”
I hope no cripples ever wanna move to China. Here in America cripples have it made. They never have to walk, ‘cause they all got these nifty chairs with wheels on ‘em. They call ‘em “wheelchairs,” but I call ‘em “sweet deals,” ‘cause you can just roll everywhere in them. Cripples can also park at the very front of every store here, while us regular folk have to set our car out in the boonies where wolves and maggots live. Plus you have to walk like 10,000 million miles just to get to the front door. Cripples also get money for being “disabled,” as the government calls it. I call it a “get rich quick scheme waiting to happen.” From what happens in the next scene, I think every crippled Vet in America will be glad they live here and won’t think so much about those legs they left back in Saigon. Lé Ho wanders into a restaurant, and not only does the maitre d try to kick him out, but the waiter teases him with a chicken leg and a big fat chubby guy kicks his ass, then picks him up and spins him around like four times. That is like, SO totally NOT-P.C. to do.
So he got his ass kicked, and all of a sudden he’s a vampire. At least I think he is, because he wakes up IN A COFFIN. And old guy feeds him soup, then The Brow, a mime, and Mr. Pow show up, beat up Lee Hoe and the old man, then stop and leave. I guess Lee got really thirsty because he decides to drink water straight from a river after the fight. Since he doesn’t have any arms, he falls in like a dork and lands on a bank somewhere. He rolls down some hill and next thing you know he’s eating pig shit in some guy’s farm. When the farmer discovers him, he tells him that he needs courage. CUT TO: cripple carrying buckets on his shoulders! There’s no better way to build up your courage than by watering some rice fields with buckets on your shoulders. And there’s no better way to get blood out of the trunk of your car than by shooting whoever finds it.
“Dorothy, do you think the Wizard can get me some waterin’ buckets?”
So, Leap Hoh is getting on with his life while Tang’s getting his legs burned with acid by their former master Lin Chang Kun. I think ol’ Lin’s fingers are made of adamantine or something, because the acid gets on his fingers and he just laughs a lot. Tang wanted to be a success, so Lin Chang burned his legs. Makes sense. Oh yeah, he knew too much, too. Some spinning camera action and the scene ends. This is where I get up, take a piss, check my e-mail, and pick that scab on my leg, because the next thing in the movie is totally irrelevant and useless. I won’t bother getting into any detail, so I’ll just say that Linny gets really violent with some niggaz. While LCK’s riding on his enemies, Lead Hope is fishing, and Thang is crawling down the hill next to him. When Lead finds him, he kicks him. A lot. He kicks him into a cave, and then he kicks him some more. The only thing that stops him is a voice from nowhere. He gets suspicious, so, being the Colombo that he is, he kicks over a tall, skinny bucket like someone’s actually going to fucking be in there. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was though, because he kicks open a basket less than three feet in diameter and finds an old man auto-fellating himself. The Self Sucker tells them they’d make a good couple, and actually tells them that if they COMBINE TOGETHER they could become two parts of a whole and beat Lin Chang Kun. And thus, he becomes their new teacher.
With their powers combined, they can unleash the force of a single man!
Now we cut to the training sequence that’s in every single kung fu movie ever made where the master makes his students do a lot of really retarded shit so they will become stronger in a very metaphorical way. The thing is, though, that since they’re crippled they have to do special training. Tangy gets stuck with a bunch of shitty training, like crawling across two bamboo sticks sitting on four pots. That’s the best I can describe it. Anyway, he falls off and his contortionist master looks at him all disappointed and shit, like it’s gonna be fuckin’ easy or something. So after that, he has Leif Hoax walking up a hill with tons of small bamboo sticks that make him keep slipping and falling. I think the movie is just a bunch of sequences of the guy with no arms falling down inclined surfaces. Tong falls off his bamboo pot toy a bunch more, and then he sits on a rock while Leak Hole holds a rock over him by a chain tied around his ankle. When Leak loses his balance, Tong falls off and he’s hanging from the tree, crying like a pussy for his master to get him off, err, down. But all is forgiven, because next Li pulls a stick of bamboo out of the ground and FUCKING TWIRLS IT with his NUB!!! It’s funny, because in the background you can see Tang still on his lame ass bamboo/pot contraption. Then he hops on two stacks of bricks, throws one, then throws another, trying to get to the bottom. While it takes skill, it still sucks, and it’s not as cool as Li’s current exercise, which is throwing rocks at eggs with his toes. To finalize their training, the Self Sucker has them playing with a big ball of twine, which sucks, until they tie him up, and then they all start laughing. A lot. I guess people in China get their jollies by tying old people up with balls of twine.
Then a bunch of stuff happens.
Cut to the final battle where Link Chunk Coon is in the Self Sucking Master’s backyard fighting Li and Tang. Watching everything up to this point is almost a chore, because it’s so bad. It’s like when you watch one of those episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where they watch a really bad movie that’s so awful they can’t make any funny jokes about it, and not only do Mike, Servo, and Crow wish they could leave, but so do you. Anyway, we’re not on the Satellite Of Love, so, let’s move on.
This is one of the most awkward fight scenes ever filmed: two crippled Chinese guys fighting one mean Chinese guy with a hunchback made of steel. I’ve been told that “Blind Fist Of Bruce” has the worst sound effects ever, and if that’s true, it’s got some serious ass competition, because these suck. They suck like Bibleman sucks.
So they’re standing there, with their old Boss standing there, staring them down, and their teacher shows up. Here’s a transcript of the scene:
TEACHER: Ya bitch ass boss chopped off both ya arms, Li, whatcha gon’ doooooo?!
LI HO: ACT A FOOL!!!
TEACHER: That punk ass nigga burned up both ya legs, Tang whatchu
gon’ doooooo?!
TANG: ACT A FOOL!!!
TEACHER: You want madd revenge and ya ready to brawl, tell me whatcha gon’
doooooo?!
BOTH: ACT A FOOL!!!
LIN: Ya both gimp niggaz and I’ll bust that ass, so whatcha’ll gon’ doooooo?!
BOTH: ACT A FOOL!!!
LI: Talkin’ ‘bout crips, gimps, ramps fo’ wheelchairs
It’s a young ass nigga, PLEASE CALL THE DAYCARE!!
Bust out the kung fu, we down and for real
Spinnin’ my bamboo staff I’ll bust up ya grill
TANG: This mark ass bitch made some dirty moves, but like
Inspectah Deck I’m here to Show-N-Prove
His homies done rode on the wrongest crew
‘Cause them niggaz never fucked with some Crippled Kung Fu
LI: Ya think ya gon’ beat me, WHAT THE FUCK YOU SMOKE?!
I’ll kick the shit outta ribs until ya back is broke!
It seems he wanna gimp me and take my life, but I’m
Deadly and fatal like a butcher knife
TANG: Me and Li Ho can be some DANGEROUS NIGGAZ
Got ya fucked up and dead, hangin’ with GRAVEDIGGAZ
We drunk off some Henney, and we smoked some FUNK
We gettin’ NUTS, CRAZY, ‘BOUT IT and CRUNK!!!
“Man my four-year-old son can rap better than that nigga. Man, that nigga gawbage.”
Actually, that didn’t happen. But if I made the movie, it would have. And there’d be, like, a million ninjas wearing metal costumes, with a flaming car flying over them. Anyway, the fight drags on, until the ultimate mondo-Megazord motherfuck of a transformation takes place, whoosh sound effect and all, and the two combine powers.
Sweet Baby Jesus. Eventually, they figure out how to actually pull this off, and when Tang’s punching ol’ dude all up in his grill, Li starts kicking him in his shins with the heels of his feet. I don’t remember how, but they kick this guy’s ass. All I remember is at one point, Tangs gets off of Li’s back and when Lin Chang Kun is bent over, he hits him in the face WITH HIS ASS!!!11 He gets hit once by Tang, then once by Li, and he falls forward to freeze frame.
“Now STOP. VOGUE. STRIKE A POSE!”
I couldn’t possibly be bested by Jon’s “Blind Fist Of Bruce” ending, so, I present to you…
THE EVEN AWESOMER ENDING TO A MOVIE IN MOVIE HISTORY
In conclusion: China sucks.
- Mark
Mark@progressiveboink.com
AIM: NihonJoseiGaSuki