Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Sammo Kam-Bo Hung has crafted a masterpiece of classic martial arts action. Do not miss this.This film contains some of the best martial arts fight scenes ever shot. Long takes, complex action with large numbers of participants, but most importantly, absolutely stunning choreography and plenty of it. Even in intense action sequences Samo can add a moment of humour before the intensity starts again.The plot is decent (for a martial arts movie). The comedy is slapstick orientated and thankfully mostly works.As any fan of Asian action cinema knows, it's the fights that matter and these action sequences deliver in spades. Samo Hung is a legend amongst fight fans, but sadly largely unrecognised outside Hong Kong aficionados for his absolutely massive contribution to action scenes that Hollywood slowly picked up on. Unfortunately, they still don't grasp many of the concepts Samo and his fellows, like Jackie Chan, created in the 80's Golden years of Hong Kong cinema. Fight editing is dire in Hollywood.Sadly, every copy I can find is not of the best quality, even the DVD. I really wish someone would do a restoration job on it.I've watched this more times than I care to think about. Every single time, the action makes my muscles tense and I hit the rewind too often. It really is that good!A solid 10 for martial arts fans. Do not miss this one. 7/10 for others.

Lightning Kung Fu, a.k.a. The Victim, has a remarkably good and clear plot (besides all its comical elements). It is structured as two parallel plot lines which converge at the end. First we have director and actor Sammo Hung's character, who's a young, arrogant kung fu adept running around challenging everybody, in order to find someone better than himself, so he can make that person his master and learn more. He goes through all the local masters, incl. a feeble Shaolin grandmaster, before finally finding Chun Yao (the excellent Ka Yan Leung), who lives with his wife in a house outside of town. Chun Yao is the best kung fu practitioner in the district, but is strangely timid and passive, and he rejects Sammo's persistent pleas to become his student. So Sammo decides to hang around his house, sleep outside, and just generally stay, much to the annoyance of Chun Yao. Soon it becomes clear that Chun Yao was adopted by the local kung fu master, and throughout his upbringing was hated by this master's biological son, Jo-Wing. On Chun Yao's wedding night, Jo-Wing tried to rape his new wife, Yoo-Yi, and this led to Chun Yao and Yoo-Yi's leaving the household to live outside town. Chun Yao can't do anything about Jo-Wing, because he is his brother, and because he accidentally blinded Jo-Wing on one eye when they were children, so he is bound by honor to respect his elder brother no matter what. That really is the theme of the story: where do the limits to honor-bound obligation go? How much humiliation and abuse can Chun Yao suffer at his step-brother's hand before it becomes too much? Quite a great deal, it turns out. Like in some of his other movies, the master fighter Ka Yan Leung plays a somewhat cowering character who takes a lot of abuse before finally, after it is in fact too late to save his loved ones, takes action. Considering how great his kung fu skills are, this is not a very satisfactory way to tell (and end) the story. However, at least there *is* a clear storyline (which is relatively rare in second-rate kung fu movies), and the quality of the fight scenes is very good, especially the climactic sequences at the end.Anyway, Sammo's character has a major role at the end also, where we find out that he wasn't quite what he pretended to be. The story has good twists and turns, and just before the end, Sammo actually succeeds in making Chun Yao his master.All in all a good movie, but with notable shortcomings. The story is good and clear, but some developments are not satisfying. I rate this movie a 7 out of 10.

I just watched this movie yesterday and it just might have been the best kung-fu movie i have ever seen!It was funny and had lots of really great choreography!! Even Jackie and Jet couldn't do any better than this.

Sammo's remarkable masterpiece is ideally a classic vehicle to showcase Leung Kar Yan's talents (he's simply never looked better), but The Victim seems to work on many other levels: the action scenes are worthy of Sammo's legendary status as a choreographer; the comedy touches are subtle enough and occasionally quite funny; and with it's outpouring of high-octane drama - detailing an ongoing family feud - this is thoroughly more exciting than other run-of-the-mill kung fu pulp. Sammo plays his typical happy-go-lucky who seeks out a new sifu, Leung Kar Yan, a man with clearly problems of his own: his brother (Chang Yi) tried to rape his wife and has therefore been on the run ever since. Will Leung ever face up to his enemy or just continue to run? The Victim is a true late night classic; still fresh and entertaining even after all these years.