THE PRODIGAL SON: Only in Appearance

This review was requested by Arthur Robinson. Many thanks to Arthur for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon. Check out other reviews in this Martial Arts Retrospective.

Director: Sammo Hung

Writers: Sammo Hung, Barry Wong, Jing Wong

Cast: Biao Yuen, Ching-Ying Lam, Frankie Chan, Sammo Hung

Runtime: 100 mins.

1981

[Note: I watched this movie with subtitles. I peeked in at the dubbed version afterwards. I'd go so far as to say that it's so bad, it makes some of the more subtle scenes of the movie actively offensive. Sometimes it's fun to enjoy trash kung fu movie dubs, but this should be experienced in its original form if you can help it.]

Not one minute in, I had to pause the film to watch a sequence again. A camera descends into a freeze frame of a bustling restaurant. The still image then bursts into hubbub. My rewatch confirmed that the still image was actually live action: a dozen actors pack the frame, oh so still, gestures pregnant with motion. An ensemble moment of flawless craftsmanship.

Protagonist Leung Chang (Biao Yuen) is revealed with a fancy umbrella whisked away from his smirking face. He is the local kung fu street brawling legend, boasting over 300 victories. The restaurant burbles around him, including a table of stooges who mean to challenge Chang to a faceoff. They bicker amongst themselves as if deliberating which film trope to use. "Overturn a table," their leader says. "Not this table!" he is compelled to add after a henchman eagerly topples their drinks.

Already the world of the film is so rich. Director (and writer, and costar) Sammo Hung makes sure that each denizen of this restaurant is preoccupied. Whether it's how a customer eats noodles, or how they react to a brawl, every movement is distinct. Another standout blocking moment bifurcates a conversation held at another restaurant-- disembodied chopstick-holding hands pluck lobsters from the center of the frame one by one.

Hung is especially diligent at bringing small details back around. Remember the troublemaking fellows who seemed aware of their own embodied tropes? As it turns out, Chang is an unwitting fraud! His rich father has been paying off the entire village to lose. The self-aware playacting of the goons is thus doubly justified! It's like The Truman Show, but for kung fu.

The movie explodes its commentary on artifice when Chang's friends go to the opera. After developing a crush on the female lead, a chauvinist alpha male type barges into the dressing room demanding a date. He gets violent, whereupon he learns that: 1) the lead is played by a man, and 2) he is adept at kung fu. Here we bring gender and performativity into the conversation, as Leung Yee-tai (Ching-Ying Lam) beats the male aggressor into a full face of makeup.

The symbolically castrated men return to the theater during a rehearsal, this time with Chang in tow. Chang's smarmy confidence does not last, as Yee-tai rejects a surreptitious bribe right in front of his face. He physically wraps the bribe offer around Chang with a sly bit of blocking. He then smokes the whole squad in a fight, whereupon Chang realizes that Yee-tai, immensely skilled and averse to compromise, must be his new teacher.

I must admit to bracing myself for a hefty homophobia dose, but I was wrong. The Prodigal Son is a thoughtful piece of queer kung fu cinema, the likes of which I have rarely seen. "You look like a girl," sneers one of the attackers. "I look like your mother," Yee-tai replies before obliterating him. Yee-tai uses his kung fu, specifically his wing chun style, to throw his opponents' insecurities back at them. Fitting for a man comfortable enough in his body to play a woman onstage. This is reflected in his fighting style, all brutal economy, unraveling aggression with sure footing and minimal motion. It also shines in Ching-Ying Lam's masterful, melancholy performance. Chang may be the protagonist, but Yee-tai is the heart and highlight of everything.

The stakes escalate when Ngai Fei (Frankie Chan) decides to take Yee-tai as his new rival. He is a martial artist of great repute himself, as we learn when he defeats his own challenger, a guy whose right arm he broke five years ago. Left Arm Guy is a hilarious gag played entirely straight. Ngai even punctuates his victory by receiving his balls (two metal fidget orbs) back from his henchmen.

The stage is well set when Yee-tai and Ngai finally fight. Ngai is wearing the most ostentatious yellow costume! It's gorgeously shot, tensely edited, splendidly choreographed. The combat is lightning quick but shot for clarity. Sammo Hung is a legend in the martial arts scene, a pioneer of the Hong Kong New Wave movement, a peer of Jackie Chan and a mentor of many. I've already discussed his sharp eye for human moments; he excels above and beyond as an Action Director, a role he here shares with Billy Chan, Ching-Ying Lam, and Yuen Biao. My favorite detail of care is the insert shots of their lower halves, orienting us to track footwork and better understand the flow of the fight. As with all great martial arts movies, The Prodigal Son teaches us how to understand its combat. We learn fast. Such a beautiful fight, all the more impactful for it to end in such a sad way.

Yee-tai has asthma. This head-slapping reveal contextualizes his reticence, and his absolute commitment to physical discipline. He performs and fights the way he does because his body cannot take the strain of overexertion. This is why he insists that he is a top tier fighter only in appearance. When his asthma kicks in and he cannot finish the fight with Ngai, it's a deflating experience for all parties involved. Ngai disengages, only interested in a fair and honorable fight.

All the more ironic for us to discover that Ngai too has a father who pays to murder anyone who might legitimately challenge him! A group of black clad assassins descend upon Yee-tai's theatre troupe in the night. There is some extremely cool and goofy assassination parkour, but the tone turns bleak as Yee-tai struggles to survive against a dozen enemies, in a raging inferno, surrounded by the corpses of his collaborators, crippled by an ongoing asthma attack. Although The Prodigal Son is arguably comedy forward, it decimates you with its masterful tonal modulation. There is quiet tragedy around the corner of every gag.

Chang and Yee-tai retreat to the countryside to stay with Yee-tai's brother, Wong Wah-bo (Sammo Hung), himself a formidable fighter who is attempting to channel his lust for combat into calligraphy. The movie gets a bit slack as we delve more deeply into Yee-tai's family dynamics and insecurities. He is finally willing to train Chang, who picks up pointers from the brother as well.

But Yee-tai does not have enough time to catch his breath. Ngai discovers he is still alive, and when he visits under amicable terms, his bodyguards abruptly finish the job they botched earlier. Chang mourns his dead master, and Ngai mourns his confidence in his own mastery, now that he knows what his henchmen have been doing behind his back. He executes them in a stunning abstract shot that shows two heads flying off bodies shrouded in inky blackness.

Chang and Ngai curiously both wear white to the bravura climax. There is no true villain in the movie, only victims of their own masculinity, stooges trapped in their social position. The fight is a brutal battle of character payoffs, as Chang demonstrates patience, thoughtfulness, restraint, and contrition. Chang wins because (unlike Ngai) he is no longer under the illusion that things can be made right and whole under his own power. He finally trades control for discipline.

Discipline is the hinge of a great many martial arts films, but Sammo Hung invests deeply in its relationship to loss and lack. Like Yee-tai, this movie sets its feet right every step of the way.

4.5 / 5  BLOBS