June 12: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Westerns! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

John Liu’s first kung fu lessons came from his grandfather but the flexible kicks that he became famous for were from his lessons with “Flash Legs” Tan Tao Liang, who put him through a rigorous training regime — Drunken Master-style pain like resting each foot on two piles of bricks — to improve his skills.

He started off as an actor in several Hong Kong movies — Secret Rivals, The Invincible Armor, Snuff Bottle Connection — before directing and writing four quite baffling movies: Zen Kwan Do Strikes Paris, Made In China (AKA Ninja In the Claws of the CIA) and the unfinished — until 2021 — New York Ninja. Years later — and after his acting career ended — Liu developed Zen Kwan Do, which he claimed was popular in France

Man, those four movies.

Man, this movie.

As always, John Liu plays John Liu, except this time he’s in 1886 Mexico. He’s the son of the best fighter in China, a man who was given two gold dragons by the Emperor to prove just how talented he was. Those dragons, however, were a curse. He had to fight anyone who came his way. His last challenger, however, just wanted to fight him for honor. But during that fight, John’s father gets jumped and killed. With his last words, he makes the honorable martial artist the guardian of his son and of one of the dragons.

After his guardian is killed — fighters kept showing up and one finally killed him — John takes all the fighting skills he has known, the gold dragons and himself to the New World, where he wants to protect the Chinese who are fighting racism and the slavery of working on building railroads.

That sounds like a movie that makes a fair amount of sense.

Well, this is a John Liu movie.

Once he arrives in Mexico, he battles a gang of outlaws. They overcome him with their guns and push his face into a blazing campfire. Now blind as a result of his pride, he gives up. The woman he once saved — Paulette  (Cyrielle Clair, Sword of the Valiant and another major film I’ll get into in a minute) — trains him with a series of tests, like a mobile that makes sounds, a cactus he must defeat with his feet and even being able to catch knives blind that she throws at him with no warning. There’s another scene where she throws a series of eggs at him and while blindfolded, he knocks every one out of the air before they touch him.

There are enemies in wait. There’s a killer (Phillip Ko Fei) sent by the Chinese government. There’s a karate fighter (Roger Paschy) who is the guardian of a large chubby child who may never learn martial arts. There’s a scene where the kid nearly wipes himself out with nunchucks.

Paulette and John alternate training with arguing, including one time when she goes to town without telling him for two days and leaves him alone. When she returns, he asks why she didn’t leave a note. She tells him he couldn’t read it anyway. A pause and he yells, “Because I’m blind!”

This has a lot of messages in it. There are Chinese people being mistreated. There’s pride. There are the dragons, which are the symbols of the Chinese bloodline and the endless bloodshed. Most of all, while John is the best fighter of all time, he doesn’t want to fight.

But the end, man. The end. John gets shot by the mayor of the town — after winning his greatest fight — who was trying to kill Paulette. Then she’s killed by a female assassin who is killed by the chubby kid and as John Liu sits on the beach and discusses death. And we end up with that goofball kid and dead bodies everywhere.

Back to Cyrielle Clair. The credit for her in this movie literally says “Star of Tusk.” I was wondering, at the scene where John cuts open a cactus to drink while struggling to survive the desert if this movie was suddenly becoming El Topo. I mean, I get it. I’m obsessed with Alejandro Jodorowsky and see him in so many movies. But when the credits of a film — inside the film itself — call out the fact that one of the few actors in it starred in Jodorowsky’s comeback picture, well…there are no coincidences, right?

I adore this movie and not just for how weird it is. It’s a Western Kung Fu Zaitochi that’s assistant directed by Godfrey Ho. Of course I’m going to enjoy it. But I really love it because it uses the same TV sports highlight theme throughout.