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Director Teddy Chen and leading man Donnie Yen re-team after Bodyguards & Assassins, for the dark martial arts thriller Kung Fu Jungle. The film began life as Last of the Best, was then briefly called Kung Fu Killer and now goes by the name Kung Fu Jungle... and we’re still not 100% sure of that title. The Cantonese title is Jat Go Dik Mou Lam which actually translates as ‘a man's fighting arts’
A vicious killer (Wang Baojiang) stalks the martial-arts world of Hong Kong, systematically and brutally murdering and leaving a calling card of which the police are unable to make sense. As news of the murders spreads, the police are contacted by Ha (Donnie Yen) a former martial arts instructor imprisoned for accidentally killing a man, who offers to help catch the killer in return for his freedom. With Ha’s assistance, they realise that there is a strange order to the victims: all top martial artists and the way they are being killed follows a dark martial tradition. After a close encounter with the killer, Ha disappears leaving the police convinced that the two are accomplices and it was all a plot to free Ha from imprisonment. But Ha has gone back to his hometown in Foshan, to find out more about the mysterious killer and uncovers the killer's identity and reasons behind the killing spree...
(To us, the plot almost sounds like a more serious take on Tony Leung’s Bloodmoon for Seasonal Films, which saw Gary Daniels and Chuck Jeffries on the hunt for a serial killer played by Darren Shahlavi who is taking down various martial arts masters...)
Yen also served as one of the film's fight choreographers with his team including John Salvitti, alongside a number of other action directors who each handled a certain sequence including Yu Kang, Tam Jan-to (Old Shaw Brothers veteran), Stephen Tung Wei, Yuen Hua, Yuen Bun and Bruce Law who handled the films car stunts.
The film's cast includes also Charlie Yeung, Alex Fong, Fan Siu-wong, Wang Baojiang, David Chiang, and Xing Yu from Flashpoint. The film is directed by Teddy, who co-wrote the script along with Lau Ho-leung and Mak Tin-sau. The first artistic trailer for the film which will be released in October has just hit the net (see above).
