Taekwondo virtuoso Tiger (Han Yong-cheol) has fallen on hard times. He's given up wearing those Western ties and pinstriped suits for lazy open shirts and bellbottom pants. His boyband haircut may not have changed much but he's sporting a mustache now because he's drinking too much to shave. Will he ever get his reputation and self-respect back? Or is falling out of favor with his adopted gangster-father (Kim Wang-guk) destined to be a tragedy from which he'll never recover? Before we learn those answers, we're going to need to take an extended flashback to a career-defining heist gone wrong. Our down-on-his-luck drunk a.k.a. our lovelorn clotheshorse will find this between-time to be especially sorrowful. A promising engagement is dooomed; a Japanese enemy is made; and endless shots of sojou are imbibed. And that's just the first third of the movie!
Director Lee Doo-yong's madcap martial arts movie is packed with as much plot as punches. But if it's fighting you want, Returned Single-Legged Man has plenty of that, too. Indeed, the Foley artist scored as much of RS-LM as did the super-'70s composer. (A scene highlighting the sound of wooden sandals going down a dirt road is particularly comical.) As for the costuming of a trio of thugs in hot pursuit of this movie's sinewy star, the accoutrements are faultless: a high femme, spotted rope scarf, an ebony walking cane sword, and a snakeskin jacket complimented by an orange neckerchief and a metalic shirt. Who needs character traits when you have outfits like these?
Take Note: Lead actor Han Yong-cheol went by many names in his career including Han Yong-chul, Hon Long-chit, Han Long-zhe, Han Ian, and Han Charles (not to mention Westernized variations in which the surname is placed last).
Take Note 2: A dubbed version, entitled The Korean Connection, though still fun, made less sense with its dumber dialogue.
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