Stephen Chiau Sing-chi up to his usual tricks in FLIRTING SCHOLAR.


Scholar’s bout of “clandestine Kung Fu” (a sly homage to Lau’s famous duel with Jason Wang Lung-wei in the Lau Kar-leung classic DIRTY HO [1979]); Tong’s rapid fire cure when Chou-heung is turned hideously ugly by The Evil Scholar’s “Faceless Kick” ; and a bravura finale in which the Scholar must select his bride-to- be from a mob of gown-clad maid­ ens without touching or speaking to them. Gong Li manages to more than hold her own in the midst of Chiau’s comic mael­ strom, coming across as an af­ fable and fetching straightwoman. KING OF BEGGARS casts


Chiau as So Chan (a character also recently portrayed by Donnie Yen Chi-tan in the mediocre HE­ROES AMONG HEROES [1993]), a wealthy layabout who becomes enamored of beautiful prostitute Yu-shang (frequent Chiau co-star Sharia Cheung Man), who is


actually an undercover rebel try­ ing to assassinate a power-hun­ gry Martial Arts master/sorcerer named Chiu (Tsui Siu-keung). To impress his would-be bride, So enters the “Kung Fu Scholar” competition, only to be cheated out of his subsequent victory. Chiu’s pull with the emperor finds So and his father (Ng Mang-dat) tossed out of luxury’s lap onto the streets, forcing them to live as beggars. A later encounter with Chiu leaves So severely in­ jured but, upon recovering, he finds himself elected the unlikely head of the rebellious “Beggar’s Association,” which he leads in a fight to bring down their com­ mon enemy. Although the action scenes


don’t approach the level of a Tsui Hark/Ching Siu-tung collabora­ tion, this slick offering from di­ rector Gordon Chan Kar-sang boasts some attractive Mainland


exteriors (including footage taken at The Great Wall) and good cin­ ematography; unfortunately, like many recent films of this type, the wirework isn’t as undetectable as it should be. So Chan is finally able to triumph over his opponent by utilizing the “sleeping fist” tech­ nique, an inspired variation on the kind of comic Kung Fu popular­ ized by Jackie Chan in the 1970’s. The film’s sentimental moments come across with reasonable suc­ cess, but it’s Chiau’s timing and body language that really embel­ lish the proceedings. These colorful two-disc sets


continue the annoying recent trend among most HK disc com­ panies to spread average length movies over two discs (gener­ ally resulting in CLV sides that run as little as 21 or 22m). Both source prints feature moderate wear and tear (marring the visu­ als of KING OF BEGGARS and


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