Knockabout (Za jia xiao zi)

 Yipao (Yuen Biao) and his big brother Dai pao (Liang Chia-jen) are a pair of petty crooks introduced working on an elaborate con to defraud a pair of greedy bankers.* While successful, they most of their ill-gotten gains to a bugs-bunny-like beggar that's following them around (Sammo Hung).

 Their misfortune continues after that, ending up with a fateful failed attempt to rob the ruthless kung-fu master Jia Wu Dao (Lau Kar-Wing), who thoroughly outsmarts and humiliates them. And because they're just a fount of great ideas, they hatch a scheme to become his pupils until such a time when they can betray him.

 The plan somehow works, and they annoy their prospective sifu until he takes them on. But a funny thing happens as they train under him; They actually improve their kung fu until they're 'better than normal people' (something the brothers, and the film, take literally, leading to some pretty funny situations), and they develop actual respect for their new master. As for the silver fox himself, he seems to take a liking to his bumbling apprentices.

 This new, (very slightly) more enlightened status quo doesn't last. For Jia Wu Dao is hiding a dark secret, and when it's exposed it forces a confrontation between him and his apprentices, one that leads to tragedy and a brutal murder. Don't worry - in true Hong Kong movie fashion, the film's tone immediately, awkwardly recovers.
 The surviving brother teams up with Hung's chaotic beggar - who ends up being a master of the 'mishmash' style of kung fu, with a particular fondness for Monkey style - to set things right in a spectacular, more than ten-minutes long fight that somehow incorporates the lessons learned from a rope-skipping based stamina training.

 It's a solid, if episodic, plot, expertly constructed by scriptwriters Louis Lau and Huang Chik-chin to allow for as much slapstick, kung fu, and elaborate training methods as possible, all with a side of melodrama to anchor the film a little.

 And I have to say, it is pretty funny. The humour is grounded when compared with, say, Kung Fu Hustle, but other than that it's as broad and exaggerated as any other Asian comedy of the time, packed  to the gills with the standard shameless mugging and heavily telegraphed slapstick. I can see how that would put people off, but if you look past that and the terrible soundtrack there are plenty of great conceits and some truly inspired physical gags.

 (And in case it looks like I'm arguing for some sort of cultural superiority: The Benny Hill Show was on its second decade when this came out, and pantomime shows are still ridiculously popular now here in Britain, even if they're mostly pitched at kids. As for the TV and film comedies of the time in Argentina... this comes off a lot better).

 The late seventies were a good time for director/action director Sammo Hung, who was at the forefront, along with his friend Jackie Chan, of popularizing Hong Kong martial arts comedies over at Golden Harvest, setting the tone for the coming decade. Knockabout was his chance to provide another old friend and fellow student from the China Drama School - the ridiculously gifted Yuen Biao - with a leading role.

 And what an opportunity it ended up being. Knockabout starts out slow, with very mannered, visibly choreographed fights. But as the film goes on, and the protagonist's skills grow, the fighting gets more fluid, and the characters incorporate moves we saw them learning in the film's multiple (very innovative, ridiculously cool) training montages in all sorts of inventive ways.

 I'm no expert, but as in many of the Hung movies I've watched there's a lot of work put into a more subtle storytelling thread that manifests mostly through the choreographies; That is very noticeable here, and it informs and complements the film's more histrionic comedy stylings beautifully.

 I thought the humour was pretty enjoyable, but even if its operatic pitch is too much for you, I'd still recommend you stick with it; If nothing else, the final fight and the training leading up to it have some truly staggering feats of martial arts and athletic prowess.

*: The con itself is pretty cool, but the best touch is that the father-and-son bankers have identical hairy warts, and they stroke the hair coming out of them as if it was a beard.