Eureka Entertainment: A Man Called Tiger (1973) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

Not even a year after achieving success with Golden Harvest in the Raymond Chow produced One-Armed Boxer directed by and starring Hong-Kong-Taiwanese martial artist Jimmy Wang Yu, the actor soon crossed paths with Bruce Lee Fist of Fury and its Jackie Chan starring sequel director Lo Wei in the 1973 fish-out-of-water yakuza actioner A Man Called Tiger.  Originally intended to be a third collaborative vehicle between Wei and Bruce Lee before Lee redirected his interest towards producing and starring in his own movie, Wang Yu picked up the ball and in Wei’s hands churned over perhaps one of the most intense Chinese-Japanese action thrillers of the early 1970s.  For fans of the history behind former Shaw Brothers contract players Raymond Chow and Jimmy Wang Yu, it is worth noting this recently restored and repackaged special edition from Eureka Entertainment sports an early version of the Golden Harvest company logo which looks strangely very like the Shaw Brothers one, legalities be damned.

 
Chin Fu (Wang Yu) is a Chinese martial artist suspicious of his father’s suicide believing it to actually be an act of cold-blooded murder at the hands of Japanese yakuza.  Coming to Japan, he gradually ingratiates himself with the yakuza, becoming one of their top debt collectors who will even betray his own countryman Liu Han-ming (James Tien) to prove his allegiance to them.  However in secret with Han-ming’s help and that of a nightclub hostess and singer Keiko (Maria Yi), Chin Fu begins infiltrating the yakuza member by member before making his way to the heart of an illicit gambling operation.  Starting out as a martial arts film before shifting gears into a yakuza film and briefly a gambling thriller, A Man Called Tiger for all of its genre shifts manages to remain a taut and exhilarating exchange of flying kicks and punches as the stakes continue to climb and actor Jimmy Wang Yu pulls off one astonishing physical feat after another before the camera including fighting another henchman while hanging from an aerial tramway.

 
Written and directed by Lo Wei who sneakily cameos in the picture at one point, A Man Called Tiger with its graceful kaleidoscopic camera movement and carefully designed visual compositions interspersed with wild technical martial arts exchanges is something of a Hong Kong action feast.  Basking in the neon lit glow of Japan reminiscent of the later yakuza works of Seijun Suzuki thanks to lush, luminous cinematography by Fist of Fury cameraman Ching-Chu Chen, the film is simply a visual wonderment to behold.  Then there’s the electrifying music by The Way of the Dragon composer Joseph Koo which spices up the already hot proceedings and exchanges of knives, swords, pistols and punches.  Jimmy Wang Yu is very simply a pure phenomenon as he comes alive onscreen flying across the screen.  Adding a unique flavor to the saga is Maria Yi as the Japanese nightclub hostess Keiko who is inclined to help the exotic Wang Yu find his way to the truth about his father’s death.

 
Presented for the first time ever on blu-ray by Eureka Entertainment in a new 2K restoration provided by Fortune Star and presenting numerous alternate cuts of the film including a shortened re-release version and the original Hong Kong version for the very first time, A Man Called Tiger is a splendid martial arts/yakuza warfare actioner that makes a good double bill with the previous Jimmy Wang Yu effort One-Armed Boxer.  Fans of both Eureka Entertainment and their ever-unfolding rollout of Hong Kong based escapist action entertainments will be delighted with this release.  While in some scenes the sound quality can vary depending on the source material, that shouldn’t affect one’s overall enjoyment of one of the most purely fun martial arts movies to emerge from Golden Harvest.  An unlikely if not unintentional collaboration between two of Hong Kong cinema’s most skillful generators.

--Andrew Kotwicki