The Magnificent Ruffians (1979) User Reviews

Fun "Venoms" outing

[ChungMo · 7/10 · 13 October 2007]

A year after the one - two punch of Five Deadly Venoms and Crippled Avengers, director Cheh had some pretty high marks to reach with his subsequent films. While he created some highly entertaining productions none of them ever really met the standard he set with those two films.

The film concerns the plight of unemployed martial artists at the turn of the 20th century. Guns and modern transportation have essentially made the traditional security transport agency obsolete. Who needs highly trained and expensive martial artists when you can give an idiot a gun? An unhinged man who has inherited his father's businesses and wealth plus his father's "Golden Sword" skill, preys on starving, itinerant martial artists by challenging them to friendly fights. What the desperate martial artists don't know is that this guy is really fighting to the death. When the only guy in town who could possibly defeat the Golden Sword techniques refuses to sell his property to the rich guy, the rich guy concocts a plan to have our heroes, also wandering starving martial artists, kill him without their knowledge. The rich guy also covets the man's beautiful sister.

One of the criticisms of Cheh's film is that they are frequently humorless affairs despite the absurdity of the martial arts. Not so here. Quite a bit of light-hearted fun despite the evil of the rich guy's plans. However once the film hits the last third much of the fun is gone as tragedy takes full control. In contrast, The Crippled Avengers managed to maintain the humor throughout the entire film (after the nasty first ten minutes). The martial arts are choreographed by several of the "Venoms" so we do get to see a lot of their excellent skills on full display but perhaps missing the expert choreography of Tang Chia who would pull it all together. The final fight is quite remarkable and goes on for a while. The "Golden Sword" is actually a kwando (a large blade at the end of a staff) which is not frequently seen in film.

A strange scene in the middle of the film is quite revealing of director Cheh's predilections. The heroes are invited to stay at the rich guy's mansion. They are offered a bath before dinner. The four heroes, wrapped in towels, walk to the bath. One of them gooses the other who exclaims, "What are you doing?" Then three of them wrap their arms over each other's shoulders as they enter the bathroom. Suddenly they all run out screaming. There are women there ready to bath them! (We don't get to see the women naked). The upset heroes throw the women out, toss their towels off (off-screen) and we cut to them all together in the bath having a playful water fight! Cheh must have been having a wonderful day! Just a warning to those who like their Venoms a little more hetero.

A fun film, not the best, but fun.

A typical Venoms outing

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 15 September 2022]

THE MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS is about as typical a Venoms film as you can get - and there's nothing wrong with that. It has an interesting subtext about the growth of new technology and weapons meaning that martial artists are left out on their luck, but this is very much secondary to the story of Lu Feng's greedy property owner who'll stop at nothing to indulge in his twin passions of expansion and killing rival martial artists. Lo Meng is a delight as the upright security bureau chief standing against him, while the others play vagabonds who get caught up in the plot. There's plenty of action, of course, the best of it saved for the elaborate climax, and it's never less than engaging at any point.

A decent action movie

[sauravjoshi85 · 6/10 · 18 May 2021]

Magnificent Ruffians a.k.a The destroyers is an action revenge movie directed by Chang Chen and stars Kuo Chui, Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng, Lo Mang and Sun Chien.

A cruel man hires four Kung Fu expert to fight with a shopkeeper in order to upsurp his property but the plan backfires as eventually they all becomes friends.

These are the type of movies which revolves around Martial arts or Kung Fu and despite of being an average story, funny acting and messed up screenplay will keeps you mesmerized with the engrossing fight.

This movie is also the similar kind of movie which turns into a revenge drama, the way people dies in the movie is very funny, acting in the movie is decent and the characters looks more martial arts or Kung fu instructors. Screenplay of the movie is decent and predictable. Climax is also decent.

This is a good one time watch action movie with pinch of comedy and emotions.

Five friends are divided by a cruel kung fu warlord.

[traveler777x · 10/10 · 6 November 1998]

Four starving friends and their new friend are tricked by a madman into fighting each other. This movie has 3 major elements that any good kung fu movie must have: great cameraderie between the main heroes, awesome kung fu, and a great villain!

Good One for All Shaw Brothers Film Fans!!

[rogmeistr · 12 January 2001]

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** As a fan of Shaw Brothers films, especially the director, Chang Cheh..it's a pretty good movie. It has the Venom Gang, comic relief and good fighting sequences. A brief synopsis on the film if I may. A business lacking escort service ran by a rich martial artist, Feng Lu(Centipede and Silver Spear fame)needs to feed his hunger for Kung Fu, traps martial artists and fights them to the death. As his business is decreasing he looks to expand and targets an escort service inhabited by a mother, daughter and son(Meng Lo: Toad, Golden Arm). As he tries to buy his business, Meng Lo is stubborn and refuses to sell the escort service. The brash and abrasive Meng Lo seeks to fight all the time but his sister and mother always calling on him to return back to the house(mommas boy). During all this, four vagabonds (Shen Chiang, Chien Sun, Philip Kwok and Li Wang)looking for food and shelter actually go to restaurants, eat their and get beaten for having no money(quite funny). Funny thing, all four vagabonds are Kung Fu expects. Anyway, Feng Lu finds out about these vagabonds and befriends the fighters to indulge in his kung fu kicks. As their provider, he bathes, feeds and shelters them. All this, the four vagabonds meet Meng Lo and develop a psuedo friendship. Meng Lo challenges all four to contests(friendly but intense-good fighting scenes). Their bond grows stronger and all this suits Feng Lu. He masterminds a plot to get them all killed by having all five turn on each other. One scene is when Meng Lo and Philip Kwok are fighting and decide to not pull any punches...so Philip(who uses a pole and Lo as always uses his bare hands)lands his pole on Meng Lo chest..Philip taps the pole and it explodes, killing Lo. To his surprise, Philip can't believe what happened and the other three vagabonds try to kill him. The pole was switched and contained explosives. They bring the dead carcass to the mother and daughter for their viewing. Feng Lu seizes the opportunity and fights with the three vagabonds...great fight scenes. Feng Lu disposes of Chien Sun and Li Wang with his famous sword by using some styles named clouds come down, cloud goes up, sun through clouds, etc..... Sheng Chiang escapes the slaughter and hooks up with Philip and both strategized a plot to kill Feng Lu. The ending is quite good, Philip and Sheng work well together as a team. Suffice to say...the good wins over evil. Works for me.

Magnificent...

[poe426 · 10/10 · 28 March 2012]

Yuan Ying Fei (Lu Feng) laments the fact that he's a great martial artist with no worthy opponent(s) against whom to test his mettle, so he whiles away the hours dispatching UNworthy opponents. (But he's no fool: in an inspired bit of insight, he points out that firearms nullify even expert martial art(ist)s.) His weapon of choice is "The Golden Sword," the family heirloom (a kwando, according to another reviewer, a sword-tipped spear). Guan Yun (Lo Meng), of the Wu Wei Security Bureau, refuses to sell out to Yuan (who wants to expand his territory). Enter He Fei (Chiang Sheng) and friends. The trio go from restaurant to restaurant eating for a beating: all three eat a meal and then alternate taking a beating from the restaurant owners when they can't pay. Yang Zhui Feng (Kuo Chui) steps in and saves one of the trio from taking a beating by promising to make good on the bill- and then turns himself over to the owner for a beating after he himself eats! Later, Yuan intervenes when Chui and the trio are having it out at the abandoned "God of Chivalry" temple and invites them all to his palatial home. There, they're fattened up for the proverbial kill as Yuan frames Guan (painting him as an unreasonable rascal), then provokes Guan into attacking the group (and thereby verifying what Yuan has claimed). Yang inadvertently kills Guan when Yuan secretly switches Yang's bo for a bo loaded with explosives. Yuan then publicly "avenges" Guan by killing Sheng's two buddies. This leaves Sheng and Chui to set things right. In terms of story, THE MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS is as full of twists and turns as any of Chang Cheh's classics, and the action is great. The performances all around are up to par, as well. Recommended.

Uneven tone leading into final third but mostly it is entertaining, funny and ends with some quite brilliant fight sequences

[bob the moo · 3 January 2014]

Yuan Ying Fei is the descendant of the one known as Golden Sword and himself is a master of the technique as well as being boss of the town. He is so a cruel man and has killed his sparring partners with unnecessary blows, causing many martial artists to leave the town with only Guan Ah Yun remaining. Guan is the owner of Wu Wei security bureau which Yuan wishes to buy but cannot bully Guan out as he has an eye for his sister and Guan cannot fight back because any time he tries his sister and mother stop him. Yuan is stuck until he learns of 4 kung fu experts who are passing through the town by eating in restaurants and then taking it in terms to take a beating due to not being able to pay. Yuan tricks He Fei,Yang Zhui Feng, Zeng Qiao and Feng Jia Ji into being his friends and then tricks them into believing that Guan is a cruel and unhelpful man. The four go to fight Guan, but do so away from his mother and sister – but the fights produce mutual respect and friendship between sparring which leads Yuan to more deadly deception.

Starting with the great title (Magnificent Ruffians!) this is a film with a lot of confidence and for good reason as it is consistently entertaining and exciting. The film sees our four main characters chancing their way through life due to the collapse of the contracted bodyguard business. This section sees the fun and rough and tumble suggested by the title and it is a lot of fun with some genuinely funny moments and dialogue. This continues for the majority of the film and then, almost too suddenly, the tone changes dramatically due to a couple of plot devices which in my opinion are darker than they needed to be – but in many ways are just part of this genre. Although it feels like a misstep these things do set up a really strong final third, with lots of action.

Speaking of the action, it is rarely less than great. The sparring between the five friends is fun but the real high of the film is the action involving Golden Sword Yuan. He uses what is essentially a pole with a sword on the end of it and it is brutal and he moves with it so impressively well – Lu Feng plays him as a cruel villain and has the skills to back it up. His fight with Kwok and Chiang Sheng is particularly brilliant with all three moving so perfectly in time with each other while appearing to hold nothing back – there were a few moves I had to play back just to be sure I had really seen what had happened. Although this is the high point, all of the cast are strong in the action but also in the characters, with Lo Meng being likable, while Wang Li, Sun Chein, Chiang and Kwok all having good chemistry and with good comic delivery that plays just right for the camera (not exaggerated – Tigress of Shaolin, I'm looking at you).

Visually the film looks good and the sets are good enough to make up for the lack of external locations. Some of the incidental music is a bit odd at times and it does appear to have "borrowed" from Rocky and, more obviously, the theme from Taxi Driver (although it uses the latter really well). It does suffer a little from a really abrupt gear change and some plot devices that really clash with the entertainingly comedic tone of the first hour, but aside from this the film works very well with laughs, good chemistry and some really impressive and well choreographed fight sequences.