Too much of everything

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

When I'm browsing through Netflix martial arts movies it's difficult to tell from the ratings whether the movie is any good, because so many martial arts fans judge a movie entirely by its fight sequences. This I think is the case with Wing Chung, a rather poor movie with excellent combat.With an absurd mistaken identity plot and a lot of low, broad comedy often centered around sex, Wing Chung puts very little effort into its story and goes for only the cheapest laughs, where even if you laugh, you feel bad about it. While King-Tan Yuen makes the most of her shrewish, lustful character, and Michelle Yeoh is likable as the one non-slapstick character in the film, the other actors range from forgettable (even Donnie Yen!) to painfully bad (notably Waise Lee as the scholar).On the other hand, some of the wire-fu fights are great, particular a brief opening number in which Wing Chung uses a man as a puppet to fight while she sits in a chair and a terrifically entertaining battle over a dish of tofu.Unfortunately there is a lot more plot than action, so unless you're a fan of low comedy you're better off fast-forwarding through the predictable story.

Wing Chun surprises with its fast pace and excellent physical comedy. Fight scenes are also convincing. The entire setting is not very original, but amusing and that is what really counts. There were ultimately moments when the film feels a bit messy, but in all wire- and stunt-work has been done wonderfully and cleanly.The characters are all rather likable. The bad guys are rather faceless, but not a big disappointment. The soundtrack has a classic 80s sound to it which makes the movie stand out in a nice campy way.The film isn't really a drama or action film, but rather a fast-paced slapstick. A fun experience and an admirable Kung Fu flick.

The lovely Michelle Yeoh plays Wing Chun, a brilliant martial artist who lives in a tofu shop in a small village, with her aunt, Abacas Fong (King-Tan Yuen). Wing rescues a beautiful woman, Charmy (Catherine Hung), and her sick husband from a gang of bandits that plague the locals. Unfortunately, the husband dies, so the young widow goes to work in the tofu shop, where she attracts many new customers, including local scholar Wong (Waise Lee).Enter Leung Pok-To (Donnie Yen), a fighter who has returned to the village after many years in order to marry his sweetheart, Wing Chun. He believes Charmy to be his wife-to-be and Wing Chun to be a man (because of the clothes she wears—a common plot device in Eastern movies) and this sets the scene for several farcical moments involving mistaken identities and sexual innuendo (including one in which Wong is tricked into bedding Abacus).After much lame smutty comedy, the film returns to the action, with nasty bandit, Flying Monkey (who also has a thing for Charmy) attempting to abduct the pretty tofu girl. However, Wing Chun foils his plot, burning off his tallywhacker in the process!When bandit leader Flying Chimp sees what Wing Chun has done, he kidnaps Charmy and challenges Wing to a duel. Wing wins and Charmy is released, but Wing must return three days later for another bout. If she loses, she must stay in the bandit lair where Flying Chimp hopes to 'tame' the beautiful fighter.With its talented cast and proficient director (Yuen Woo-Ping), I had high hopes for Wing Chun. Unfortunately, the film didn't live up to my expectations, ending up as a pretty average mix of silly comedy and over-the-top martial arts sequences that rely far to heavily on clever editing and Woo-Ping's trademark wire-fu trickery.I do not deny that Wing Chun is pretty inoffensive fun and there are worse ways to spend your time, but with a film starring two of my favourite HK stars, Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen, I was really hoping for something special.

Yong Chun/Whing Chun(1994) contains action scenes which are brilliantly Staged and amazingly depicted. Many of the scenes with Michelle Yeoh are examples of why she is the Queen of Hong Kong action films. She is an action star to which many aspiring action heroines looks up to her. Michelle Yeoh combines earthiness beauty with physical endurance as Yim Wing Chun. I show Wing Chun(1994) at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge and became a big fan of the film and the career of Michelle Yeoh.