Customer Reviews

Dirty Ho

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed this flick,,truly one of Gordon Liu best performance,,,there is no question,,not only is this guy an amazing kung fu performer, but he can truly act. This flick is truly a gem,,a ,must have classic. Old school kung fu very transparent from the start to finish!! Definatly a must have for the collection,,,,you will not be dissapointed!!

To some, this is a classic piece of kung fu cinema history. To me, it could've been with some severe tightening up. The overall story is very good for this type of flick, as is the majority of the film's execution. Director Lau Kar Leung ("The 36th Chamber of Shaolin") delivers one of his more unique and frustrating films. The martial arts? Pretty sweet. Appearances by Lo Lieh, Wilson Tong, and Johnny Wang as bad guys is always an asset too. What's the problem then?

Gordon Liu stars as the 11th Prince who is hiding out in a brothel as an antique-collector while one of his evil brothers plans his assassination. In the meantime, Liu is competing for the attention of the girls in the brothel with Ho Ching (Wong Yu), a petty thief. Liu uses his influence and intelligence to trick Ho Ching out of the things he has stolen but keep him out of trouble at the same time. Ho Ching wants his money back but Liu is always one step ahead of him, pretending to not know how to fight yet evading all of Ho's attacks. Liu eventually blackmails Ho into being his disciple after Ho is poisoned. Assassins soon find Liu's whereabouts and come after him.

The fights where Gordon Liu pretends not to know how to fight are kinda neat... at first. Then they just become boring. The fight where an antique-dealer attempts to assassinate Liu while both are still having a civil conversation was kinda neat... at first. Did they need another fight that was essentially the same? These may sound like minor problems in the scheme of things, but they drove me nuts and took away from my overall enjoyment of the film. These pesky scenes are very well done, with Liu looking fantastic. Wong Yu's fighting performance is also very good. However the fights don't really get going until Liu's identity is revealed to his disciple and they start to train, about a half hour from the end.

The version I have is a remastered one from Red Sun. Though I don't usually advocate buying their bootlegs, sometimes they have stuff that you can't otherwise obtain, and I know of no other remastered copies available in a region-free format. The picture quality is fantastic with a nice widescreen picture. In English only with removable English subtitles. Many fans of fu consider this movie to be a great one, so it is recommended to those who can overlook the flaws I consider fatal. Maybe I'm wrong. I once placed Sammo Hung's "Warriors Two" in the same category and I now hail it as a masterpiece.

1979

Now this is one of the best red sun releases there are. It is presented in a letterboxed format. And the film print has been restored 100%. It is so beautiful. I am telling you, when you buy red sun release, MAKE SURE IT SAYS REMASTERED ON THE BOX. If it doesn't say it, it is non remastered, has imbedded subs, is full screened, etc. Every red sun release has been exceptable to me(except 1), but the remastered ones are seriously of the top 5 percentile fo my HUGE dvd collection. And if you are wonderign if it is good, look it up on here, most likely I have reviewed it and the red sun version they are showign too.

Now this movie is truly one of the best shaw productions ever. Great opening shaw white backround battle sequence. Wong Yue(not jimmy wang yu) and gordon liu are both in a brothel and keep both of the guys keep giving all the girls a ton of money in hopes to be with them all night. When Wong yue realizes that Gordon is the playboy who is competing with him he tries to fight him. What we find out is that gordon is a Prince. So since gordon can't(won't) fight, wong yue beats him up anyway. Dirty Ho. I saw the title of this movie, and said WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it is surprisingly a fitting title. So wong yue gets into a little too much trouble(not like he hadn't caused any before), and gordon decides to take him on. He forces him to be his disciple and does this by making Dirty Ho think he is poisoned. So just before this we see that the Gordon Liu's brother has plans to kill him so that he can become emperor. He doesn't want it to be known so he sends assasins. First up is Johhny Wang(lung lung wei) who invites him to a wine tasting event. This fight is one of the most brilliant I have ever seen put to the jade screen. Hsiou Ho, who has played little monkey in "Mad Monkey Kung Fu" and Fong Sai Yuk in "Disciples of master Killer" is Johhny Wang's sidekick(waiter) and his acrobatics are on full display. Watching Gordon have to hide his skills whenever Dirty Ho is around is SUCH a pleasure. Finally at the midway point we get a twist. One that I wasn't expecting and didn't think it was going to work. But it turned out to be a great final fight and the arrow use was pretty unique I thought for a movie like this. They have these Mongolian Archers in the back row who freaking jump over the front row archers already shooting arrows in mid air RIGHT after the front row archers shoot. It is just some more stunning choreography by Master Lau Kar Leung. Also unique to this is a group of very wierd vilians. A group comes over to fight wing yue and gordon and they are all just a bit on the wierd side. The first one is a guy who you punch all you can and he just takes it. The next guy is the biter, you can guess what he does. The next guy is bitter face and has a sad face and he bi*** slaps you until your face is cringed up like his. I won't tell you the rest but like I said, this classic has some VERY unique touches. It ends up being a weird scene but the only questionable part of the movie, Not everyday that you find a good kung fu MOVIE. Just like what he did in Shaolin mantis and Shaolin Challenges Ninja, Master Lau has proven to be the best kung fu director ever.

So the picture quality is absolutely perfecto. And the 2-channel classic dub job is very good too. Trailers include celestial's releases of Five Venoms, Crippled Avengers, and Mad Monkey Kung Fu. By the way, all these movies have been released by red sun. Just make sure it says remastered, cause if it does, then they DO NOT lie like ground zero or crash cinema does.

Cherish this movie people, it is one for adults, the children, everyone.

Dirty Ho is one of the best DVD's in the martial arts category. What can I say about it..if you are into martial arts classics, this DVD is for you. It also stars Gordon Liu and Lau Kar Leung...2 of the best in the business. Get it. You will not regret it.

1 of the best kung fu movies of its time! the only thing is that we all have 2 grow old! b cuz talent like these martial artist we will never get & the quality of movies will never b the same!!!!! sure they have good movies out there... but 2 me there no comparison 2 the originals!!!!!!

I love old-school kung-fu.

For reference, I would say that my two favorites are: "Master of the Flying Guillotine," and "5 Elemental Ninja."

Dirty Ho is AWFUL! Granted the only reason I bought it was because I delight in seeing people read the title and squirm thinking it must be an "adult" title... but it is really bad.

Every character looks exactly the same except for Ho, who is easily distinguished by a small bandage on his head. Apparently the fact that he has a band-aid on his head makes him "dirty?" Shouldn't his name be "Injured Ho?" or "Wounded Ho?" I dunno.

The fighting is pretty mediocre especially considering you can't tell who is who (except for Ho). If there is a plot I couldn't figure it out...

Stay away.

A true classic, this movie while having a strange name delivers on action and great fight scenes. Others give the story so I will not go over it again, but this movie is still one of my favorites.

I heard over and over again about how good Dirty Ho was, how it was a classic, a must see. Well, I finally saw it and it was terrible. So why did I give it 3 stars? The two fight scenes in the middle of the movie, with the wine connoisseur and the antique merchant, was probably the best fight scenes I've ever seen. Besides that, the movie was horrible. The plot was stupid. I still don't understand why they were trying to kill Gordon Liu when there were at least 10 other brothers. Maybe I missed something. The fight in the windy tunnel was so bad I skipped ahead to the next scene.
Dirty Ho is worth a watch for the two above mentioned fight scenes, but other than that, avoid at all cost!

This movie is a classic old-school kung-fu movie. Gordon Liu always entertains and choreography is top notch for its time. However, the release from Red Sun entertainment is a disappointment. On the DVD cover it states that it is remastered, I highly doubt that. The picture looks grainy and you can see the tracking adjustments on a few scenes that usually happens on VHS tapes. I was hoping that celestial pictures would remaster this picture like other Shaw Bros. films.

Hey kung fu fans like myself! I know whatever i say you might still want to see this movie, but trust me when you do see it ha ha you will be bored! This is another movie that recieved tons of hype for who knows what reason? I gave it three stars for having a story you can follow. As far as the fight scenes go they are not spectacular. I know its an oldie but still . Go see the magnificant butcher or fearless heyena. bye