Lo Wei had his fingers in a lot of successful pies. From “discovering” and getting Bruce Lee on the big screen with The Big Boss and Fists Of Fury (1971 & 1972 respectively), as well as “launching” the career of Jackie Chan.
Jackie Chan was under an exclusive contract with Lo Wei’s studio, but having worked with Yuen Woo Ping at Ng See Yuen’s Seasonal Film Corp for Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master, Jackie had a taste of the big time and he wanted more. Now back with Lo Wei, they tried to replicate the success of Drunken Master with films such as Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu (1978) and Spiritual Kung Fu (also 1978), but neither of these worked in the same way and Jackie wanted to capture that, so he asked the well respected Jimmy Wang Yu to speak with Lo Wei about letting Jackie out of his contract, however, there was a problem… Lo Wei was allegedly connected in nefarious ways to The Triads, so this was going to be far from easy.
However, that would come later on, because in 1974 the world of the Jade Screen was still reeling from the passing of Lo Wei’s biggest star, Bruce Lee, and whilst Lo Wei would dip his own foot into the pantheon of Bruceplotation, first he had a small matter of that other star from Bruce Lee’s directorial debut, a man that would become a legend in his own right, Mr Chuck Norris with Slaughter in San Francisco (aka Yellow Faced Tiger & aka Karate Cop).
If you have as much love for Bruce Le, Bruce Li and/or Dragon Lee as much as the master, Bruce Lee, then you are really going to enjoy this one.
Starring Wong Tao (aka Don Wong) as our plucky cop in a violent city, fighting crime by kicking ass, but one day he takes it too far and someone dies. Due to this our Yellow Faced Tiger (their words, not mine) gets relieved of duty, pays his debt to society and remains friends with his partner… who gets kidnapped and killed as Don rushes to save him… now, before y’all start screaming “SPOILER”, this all happens within the first ten minutes, so I recommend that you have your focus flat caps on, because this film is throwing stuff at you from all angles and various speeds. Miss something and you could end up like Lord Lucan, lost forever with only the occasional inclination as to where you might be.
At this juncture it is worth pointing out just how much fun Slaughter in San Francisco really is. The pace is constant and unrelenting, even if certain events just feel like an excuse to get to the next bout of fancy fisticuffs, but there is a real exploitation feel to the whole thing, and as everyone knows, the best exploitation cinema is 1970s exploration cinema.
Eureka Entertainment have included both cuts of this film, the US market version (with it’s Axis International dub) which is the Slaughter in San Francisco, and a more Hong Kong centric cut, under the more problematic name of Yellow Faced Tiger, but this time with a Cantonese audio and English . Add to this a commentary track by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth, along with Mike Leeder and Arne Venema on another , there are so many fascinating bits and pieces on the film in question.
If you have as much love for Bruce Le, Bruce Li and/or Dragon Lee as much as the master, Bruce Lee, then you are really going to enjoy this one. However, if you tolerance isn’t as forgiving as that, then I’d say hold on for one hot minute, because whilst it isn’t perfect for everyone, it is perfect for me. What a time to be alive!
SLAUGHTER IN SAN FRANCISCO (1974) IS OUT NOW ON EUREKA BLU-RAY
