Being the debut of its director  Bao Tran and starring Asian leads, I thought this was another of the recent spate of films exploring Asian-American identities. It turns that this isn’t really the case as it’s a straight up martial arts film. The plot is simple and the ending feels abbreviated but it does make for an effective story and they do actually have real martial arts choreography. That makes this film a real pleasure to watch and something the director has good reason to be proud of.

Three friends, Danny, Hing and Jim, are the sole disciples of Sifu Cheung whose kung fu prowess is undisputed but has always refused to formally open a school. Despite being the best of friends in their youth, they have fallen out of touch with each and with their sifu over the decades. One day Hing calls Danny to tell him that sifu is dead and so the latter takes time out of his troubles with his divorced wife and the son he shares custody with to go to the funeral. Another kung fu teacher handles the funeral arrangements and Carter who was their rival during their youth and is now a teacher in his own right, suggests that Sifu Cheung died under suspicious circumstances. Danny reluctantly agrees with Hing to bring in Jim to investigate, beginning with a trio of youths who gatecrashed the funeral and claim to be their sifu’s students as well. Despite their age and physical handicaps, the three must fight to protect their sifu’s legacy and naturally as such stories go, this leads to reconciliation between the three and Danny, the eldest disciple, becoming a better father.

This is a very old-fashioned, traditional kind of martial arts film and plays the silliness of middle-aged men practicing kung fu for laughs. It is very easy to imagine how this could be cringey and embarrassing for everyone involved. Yet through a combination of unabashed wholesomeness, charm and real martial arts competence, it mostly succeeds. Some activists seem to have expressed some concerns about this film reinforces stereotypes about Asians being kung fu practitioners but, like it or not, it is a part of Asian culture and it is kind of cool seeing it alive in the US. I also liked how it includes Jim, a black man, as a member of the trio without having to draw special attention to his ethnicity at all. One way that the film could have been improved in its characterization would be to have the three realize that their sifu, for all of his virtues, had flaws of his own and perhaps personal demons in his past. There are some hints of this here with the sifu not appreciating that the three need to make a living somehow or that they want to do something with their martial arts skills, but the film doesn’t quite dare to go over that line.

The real draw is still the impressive action choreography and hiring performers who are real martial artists. Naturally the level of skill varies. The film tries to frame Danny as the protagonist but the actor who plays him Alain Uy has a tough time convincing us that he is really that formidable. Ron Yuan who plays Hing is far better even as he had to put on weight for the role and fake a busted leg. The young punks who try to supplant them are excessively showy in their moves but they are actually really good too. The final fight is kind of disappointing as the film has to cheat a bit in order to have Uy win against a far more athletic and physically imposing Ken Quitugua but all of the other fights are quite good. To me it makes for an outstanding example of how a back to basics approach like this works out so much better than the overwrought, incoherent mess that we also recently watched in Seven Swords.

While the film is generally humorous, it’s not quite laugh out loud funny to me and of course it has no pretensions of being great art. It’s downright weird how the three realize that the villain is using their sifu’s prized technique to assassinate people and aren’t at all surprised that this is a real thing that exists in the world. Similarly Hing’s ability to heal is so versatile and powerful that it’s incomprehensible why he isn’t able to make a decent living off of it. Essentially this is a world that runs on the kind of comic-book logic that falls apart if you examine the tropes too seriously. Still it is solid entertainment and that’s all it needs to be.