What are you supposed to do at a Kung Fu Academy where no Kung Fu is taught? “Huh. It looks like the dean is a banker this year. I guess no school then.”
Personally, I found it difficult to believe this film even brought up the idea of Wushu Academy, cuz the film never shows martial arts instruction and after the first scene, the academy does not appear in the rest of the film about the academy.
So why were these badasses fighting over it? You got me.
It’s 1912 at the U of Fu and the master’s departure from this mortal coil -he didn’t die doing Kung Fu (?!); are we sure this is how he wanted to go?- leaves an upper echelon vacancy between Qi Quan (Andy On), and Shen An (Jacky Heung). One of these dudes is his son and the other is the school’s top student. They fight. A lot.
And when I say, “a lot,” I mean this is the whole film. In fact, twice the men are required by contract to stop fighting … and they fight anyway. Sometimes the fighting is aimed at humbling the opponent; sometimes it’s for blood. What the watcher can always be assured of is there can’t be more than five minutes before more fighting will happen.
(The characters claim the fighting will resolve the question of leadership of the school, but really? They just like fighting.)
What’s new about the fighting here? Well, I like the idea of the fighting where you show the opponent how you’ve beaten him (which is common in this film) vs. the fighting where you actually knife an opponent’s torso. But the truly unique part for me here is the 
weaponry. There is a clan of dudes who only use slingshots. OK. That’s a thing, I guess. No bows? No guns? Slingshot. Sure.
There’s a woman who fights with large protractors. I wish I were kidding, but I am not. And the only way that scene gets better is if she’s attacked by a dude with a giant compass or ruler or a geometer or some shit like that.
There is an entire clan of dudes who fight with I’m not sure exactly how to describe this – toboggan runners. Yeah, like mini skis. I have no idea how you get to the point where you become deft at the protractor, slingshot, or toboggan runner, but I imagine there’s a lot of humiliation involved. It sounds like the natural extension of that Monty Python sketch where neophytes are trained to defend themselves against fruit-wielding vandals.
100 Yards refers to the buffer zone around the school dividing civilized fighting and street fighting. It doesn’t matter; bottom line is Pride and Pugilism (and odd weaponry). If you’re into the Fu, this schoo is coo. However, if the fist won’t be missed, well, you get the gist.
There once was a gifted Fu pupil
Who contained a modicum of scruple
So he shunned to brawl
Ignoring it all
Until he responded quadruple
Not Rated, 108 Minutes
Director: Haofeng Xu, Junfeng Xu
Writer: Haofeng Xu
Genre: A whole lotta fighting
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Kung fools
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Pacifists
