Opium Yen

We enjoyed the last Donnie Yen/Yuen Woo-Ping we watched, so we figured we'd try Heroes Among Heroes (1993).

Here, Yen is a rich kid whose father had sent him to live with beggars to learn humility when his mother died. It wasn't that effective - he's pretty arrogant. He meets a cute Westernized woman, Fennie Yuen. Her uncle is the Manchu prince, so Yen falls in with him as well. Meanwhile, Yen's father, Ng Man-Tat, is ruthlessly henpecked by his departed wife's sister, Sheila Chan with grotesque buck teeth.

Yen gets in a fight with the Fire Lotus Gang, a female gang. He defeats them, but does a lot of damage (and gets beat up pretty badly). So the prince introduces him to opium. 

The main story line is how the Manchu collude with the British to bring opium to the masses. Yen starts out leading gangs against the traffickers, then becomes addicted to opium, and has to kick the habit and regain his self-respect. So he takes refuge with his beggar foster father. He teaches him drunken kung fu as a counter strategy against the Manchu and British.

This was not really my favorite part. The fights are only so-so, and the opium threat is handled with little finesse. Actually, my favorite part was Sheila Chan playing auntie. Although she treats him poorly, we come to realize that she wants Yen's father to love her. When he finally snaps at her treatment and hits her, he knocks her buck teeth back to normal size and makes her express her love. It's rather misogynistic, and very silly, but kind of fun. 

So, not these guys' best outing. Really, they should have cut some of the plot and added a lot more fights.