Cantonese: Dai goh Sing
Mandarin: Da ge Cheng
English: Big Brother Sing or Big Brother Cheng

At the conclusion of THE TEAHOUSE (Issue #144a), Wang Cheng (Chen Kuan-tai) left the city and now hopes to find peace in the New Territories. However, the teahouse staff begs him to return and help them deal with various hardships that have arisen in his absence. Cheng pledges to protect his employees from every breed of criminal, and is soon putting the screws to swindlers, thieves, rapists, drug dealers, and hoods running illegal casinos. In spite of these vigilante tactics, Cheng's relationship with the law improves when he saves a local police captain's life. However, once Cheng is elevated to the level of a folk hero, the authorities can no longer ignore his fragrant law breaking. Other obstacles include the 18K gang, now under the leadership of a young and far from honorable usurper, and some revenge-minded thugs that Cheng reluctantly let go previously.

BIG BROTHER CHENG offers another look at the social injustices endured by HK's poor and tackles the subject with even less reserve than its predecessor. Director Kuei Chi-hung delivers more of the same but with less style, and the episodic, highly predictable plotting does not make for especially gripping viewing. The film does bounce back for a genuinely exciting finale but the entire production is undermined by a narrative twist that was almost certainly dictated by the censors as a way of justifying the wholesale glorification of vigilante justice. Like THE TEAHOUSE, this was a substantial success (according to the back cover blurb, it was Shaw Brothers' top grossing action film of 1975) but, nowadays, BIG BROTHER CHENG is just a mildly interesting curio for SB completists. Most of the principals from the original return [including Wong Yue (image), Karen Yeh Leng-chi, and Ha Ping] and, if you keep an eye on the background, you can see familiar faces like Bruce Le (during a funeral sequence) and Lee Hoi-sang (as a positively hirsute thug).

Intercontinental #611643 {Hong Kong label] Dolby Digital 2.0 Cantonese Language Track (post-synced) Optional Subtitles in English, Traditional Chinese, Malaysian, and Indonesian 12 Chapters Illustrated in the Menu With (Tiny) Clips Letterboxed (2.35:1) Coded for Region 3 Only NTSC Format 107 Minutes Contains moderate violence, torture, nudity, and brief sexual violence

DVD menu courtesy Intercontinental.

BIG BROTHER CHENG is available at Poker Industries.