Wing Chun (1994)

Please don't spend money on this.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

Despite that fact that different plot ideas for Kung Fu movie has been fully exploited by now and no new ideas are coming, Wing Chun still stands out in its uniqueness mostly because Michelle Yeoh is its star. If this movie was done by anyone else, it probably would have ended up being a dud, but she brings class to this movie it otherwise would not have had. The movie has very different atmosphere from other Kung Fu movies. While silly things are happening, Michelle Yeoh's action is precise and eye opening. She's the only one playing strait, and it works.There has been other Kung Fu movies done by female lead, but they are mostly gruesomely violent. While there're lot of action in this movie, none of its action is violent. You won't see any blood, no bones being crushed, and yet it's filled with great action.Somewhat difficult to find these days, but you owe it to yourself to see this movie at least once.

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.

This is not "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with its subtlety, lyricism, and views about love, freedom and the consequences of one's allegiances.Wing Chun (Yong Chun) is a light-hearted comedic martial arts movie, and it is a very good one, too.Michelle Yeoh is amazing, she kicks butt and does so in her trademark elegance. She is never strident, or out-of-control. There is discipline in her acting as well as in her martial arts. The dialogue leaves something to be desired, and is a bit tacky at some points, but again, it's a comedy, so it's pretty easy to take into stride.The tofu scene, where Wing Chun (Yeoh's character) schools her opponent, is probably one of the best in this film genre.