Seven Steps of Kung Fu
Seven Steps of Kung Fu
| 31 December 1979 (USA)
Seven Steps of Kung Fu Trailers

A general and his band of thugs plot to take over a village. Tiger, a local kung fu protege, brings this information to his uncle, a master of the seven steps style of kung fu. His uncle teaches him the style, and together they take on the general and his thugs.

Reviews
Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Murphy Howard I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
ckormos1 Title-wise it is more correctly the seven step style of kung fu. Master summons the gang. Another guy goes to see the silk factory. Ricky Chen enters as an acrobatic doofus. As Little Tiger, he defends a girl from a drunk. Two sinister looking guys discuss that white eyebrows has summoned the gang. Cut to our guy practicing. He gets into a dispute with another man over an apple and each end up with a large medallion. His master, Ga Hoi, knows the owner. They watch for strangers in town. One is a girl, Lam Yi-Wa. That's the bad guys for some reason. The girl ends up changing sides.The last half hour of this movie is almost 100% fights. That can actually be a problem if all the fights look alike. It is not a problem here. The choreography is excellent and never becomes redundant.Ricky Cheng has a Chinese opera background and uses acrobatics in his fights. After making a few movies at Shaw Brothers he took his skills to Taiwan. This movie is one of his very few lead roles. I rate this one above average for the year and genre and certainly recommend it for fans of the golden age of martial arts movies from 1967-1984.
lemon_magic There were a lot of Spaghetti Easterns churned out in the 70s and 80s, and this particular movie is good, but not great. This is product, nothing move, with the obvious intention to fill 90+ minutes of screen time and get the product into the theaters as part of a double or triple feature. Then go crank out some more, rinse, repeat....Still "7 Steps" feels to me as if someone(s) on a tight budget and schedule went to the effort to make something solid and enjoyable for their audience.The camera and photography spend enough time on the scenery and the sets that you get a nice sense of atmosphere; the costumes are fun and interesting; and the endless plethora of fight scenes have a lot of energy and flow in fun and surprising ways (there are a few moves and stunts here that I don't recall seeing anywhere else). The cast is especially solid; these guys are mostly stunt men and fighters, not "actors", but you can see the fighters going through various emotional changes and states of mind during the fights (my criteria for a well made kung fu movie). Even the plot even has a slightly fresher approach; instead of the "single hero revenges his fallen master/fights the evil dynasty" trope, the hero and his teacher team up in each major fight scene to beat (and mostly kill) each individual member of the gang of bad guys who want to take over their village. In fact, they are fairly ruthless and sneaky about it! Bonus: the sound track,while muffled in spots,has some dynamic range and textures instead of the usual flute and trumpets motifs.In short, if you like this kind of thing, you'll probably enjoy "Seven Steps". If not, this probably won't convert you.
poe426 Tiger, who's sweet on Miss Chiao Lan (? The dubbing was bad on the copy I saw, so it was hard to understand just what some of the translators were saying from time to time...), defends her when she's put upon by a local gang. His master, Li, turns out to be an old enemy of The Five Hand Gang, so, when Tiger turns up with a medallion belonging to one of the Five Hand Gang members, he instructs his pupil to inform him immediately if he sees any strangers in town. Before young can count to five, Tiger sees a woman in a sedan chair he's never seen before, as well as a mysterious, "powerful man carrying a spear." The two are headed for Kung's house. Kung, it turns out, is working with a white-haired general, Kwong (? Again, the sound on my copy sucked.), whose intention is to take over the area. Tiger kills the spear-wielding man and the proverbial s--- hits the metaphorical fan. At one point, Kwong kills both Miss Lan and the woman in the sedan chair, although they profess their innocence. "What does innocence gotta do with it?" he counters. There are a lot of fight scenes throughout, which keeps the pace brisk and helps make SEVEN STEPS OF KUNG FU worth a look.
Alexandre Bender Kung fu of seven steps is a standard martial arts movie from the seventies. There is a lot of action but the story is pretty weak( a young fighter joins the mayor to fight the bad guys who want his place). Worth a rent if you enjoy this kind of movies..................................................7,5/10
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