Return of the Dragon

An example of the middle phase martial arts film. No longer attached to the depiction of tournaments, it retains from those earlier films the teenage rebel hero chafing against the restraints of a compromised adult world paying its dues to imperialism. The film is set around an opium rehabilitation clinic (in the early '30s), whose doctors notice a dramatic increase in patients following the opening of a club as an underhand means of paving the way for a Japanese invasion. Yu Tien Lung, looking all of 17, plays the adopted helper at the clinic with exemplary directness, illustrating the concept of the everyman protagonist who can assume heroic dimensions, even - as a kind of gag - invincibility. Formula stuff that runs like clockwork.