Review of Last Hero In China, The

Introduction

A film with many names !

It`s also known as :-

Deadly China Hero
Iron Rooster Vs. the Centipede
Wong Fei Hong`s Iron Rooster vs. centipide
(amongst others)

The last 2 will become clear when you watch it. And that particular bit of the film is bonkers !

The film opens with what look like "The Knights who say `Ni`" terrorising some girls in a forest. The opening sequence is quite short but very amusing, in a ridiculous sort of way.

There`s quite a bit of humour (intentional and unintentional) through the film. A classic example :-

"I have discovered a big secret.."

"Don`t tell us now!"

"Why?"

"It`s common in movies that once a seriously injured person tells a secret, they die after telling the secret."

"Cover his mouth!"

As to the plot. What plot ? It`s all rather mixed up, you can work out what is going on, but it`s no Hitchcock ! Plenty of fight sequences to keep you entertained though.

Video

A pretty average widescreen transfer, not the cleanest around either, with bits of dust, lines and some sparkles. But you probably weren`t expecting reference material anyway ! Colours do seem a bit messed up too.

The subtitles move pretty fast and you may find yourself rewinding to check for bits you missed. And to check for some quality translation errors ! The film is riddled with them !

Audio

Thankfully, just the original Cantonese language track, not one of those awful dubbed affairs. Again, not a disc to push your system to its limits, but functional enough.

Features

Not too many special features.

A trailer (with an English dub which is terrible, thankfully they didn`t do this to the main film !)

Some stills (which aren`t great) and some filmographies.

Not really an extra, but you do get out-takes (in the Dennis Norden sense) in the closing credits, as with many martial arts films. However, these are some of the dullest out-takes I`ve seen !

Conclusion

Ok, no plot. But that`s not a huge shock.

There are some good fight sequences here, and some really crazy stuff too.

The badly translated subtitles add to the enjoyment of the film, as you`re constantly watching for the next error !

This is not one to add to your collection unless you are a real die hard martial arts fan.

But it is one to rent out with a few friends and some refreshments, because if martial arts films are your thing you`ll like the fight sequences and the silly dialogue !

One final point, it`s actually 10 minutes longer than the box says at 100 minutes as opposed to 90.