Cantonese: Jing mo moon
Mandarin: Jing wu men
English: Excellence In Martial Arts School

The 1972 Bruce Lee film FIST OF FURY (or THE CHINESE CONNECTION, as it was called in the U.S. and Canada) was a hugely successful and influential feature subsequently remade in 1994 as FIST OF LEGEND, with Jet Li Lianjie. Hong Kong's ATV Network launched a 30 episode miniseries adaptation in 1995 and later culled this two hour feature version from the second half of the production (approximately 15 hours). In the late 1930s, some Japanese forces entered China as a prelude to a full scale invasion. Martial arts master Fok Yuen-gaap (Eddy Ko Hung) sought to rally his fellow Chinese against the enemy by uniting the various kung fu schools under a single flag. Shanghai rickshaw driver Chen Jun (Donnie Yen Chi-tan, who also served as the martial arts choreographer) loves Japanese girl Yumi (THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR 2's Joey Meng Yee-man), a forbidden relationship that makes him persona non grata with the Japanese officials assigned to the territory. Chen becomes an even more notorious figure when he kills a Japanese fighter that challenged him. Forced to leave the area, Chen is not present when Master Fok is coerced into a duel to the death with the Japanese champion. Unbeknownst to Fok, he has been slipped poison and perishes after the match has concluded. The news brings Chen back to Shanghai, where he sets out to avenge Fok's death and save his fellow Chinese from an insidious Japanese plan to gas everyone within a ten mile radius.

With huge chunks of the narrative trimmed out, all that is left are brief dialogue sequences serving as the lead-ins to fights, followed by slivers of character development that now seem fairly pointless. In contrast to Jet Li, Yen tries to evoke memories of Bruce Lee by imitating his famous gestures and fighting cries, which is unfortunate, because he comes off little better than Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and their ilk. Yen's superlative kung fu is also thoroughly undermined by the presentation. While undercranking can look effective on celluloid, the speeding up of the action here looks ridiculous (the low point features a hilariously padded Bey Logan as the token Russian villain) and video also tends to cheapen the production values, which are not bad as HK TV goes. While releasing the entire miniseries would be impractical, this abridgment fails to retain the integrity of the narrative (Lo Lieh, one of the biggest names in the cast, appears for all of 5 seconds!) and the program will be of little interest to anyone beyond the most steadfast Donnie Yen fans. HK miniseries often lift music from other sources and we detected cues from ROBOCOP and HARD TARGET here. FIST OF FURY was helmed by a number of directors and six are credited for this variant: Benny Chan Muk-sing (BIG BULLET), Leung Yun-chun, Wong Kam-miu, Steve Cheng Wai-man (EROTIC NIGHTMARE), Wu Ming-hoi, and Tang Mau-sing.