My Cultural Diet

Yuen Biao stars in this kung fu caper as Mousy, a cowardly laundryman who’s constantly beaten up and ridiculed by his clients. He seems like the last person on Earth who should take on a deranged serial killer, but Mousy’s years of washing and hanging laundry have given him his own unique martial arts style. But will he actually ever muster up the courage to do what needs to be done? This early directorial effort by Yuen Woo-ping, best known to Western audiences for his martial arts choreography in the Matrix films, is a little all over the place, which isn’t too surprising given that it was written by Wong Jing. Yuen Biao is as acrobatic as ever, employing an agility similar to Jackie Chan. But the real treat was seeing Kwan Tak-hing as Wong Fei-hung. Even with all of the obvious stunt doubles, Kwan — who played Wong in nearly 80 different films — still looks plenty spry despite being in his mid 70s when Dreadnaught was made. Overall, this one’s very much for Yuen Woo-ping completists. In fact, the observant viewer will see some things that Yuen would later revisit in what is arguably his best film, 1993’s Iron Monkey.

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