My Review of "Gallants"

Gallants is a kung fu movie that came out back in 2010. The spoken language of the movie is Cantonese and unfortunately my Cantonese isn't the best. I was surprisingly still able to understand what was going on in this movie. However, a lot of the nuances and subtle jokes flew way over my head.

The story starts out with this young man named Cheung. He's a guy that's been placed in this small village I guess to purchase a small tea shop. All his life he's been bullied and even in this small village it's no different. I guess he can't go anywhere without trouble following him. The instant he comes to the village there's a little boy that harasses him.

Fighting back he confronts this young boy but the kid has back up. This is where he gets into a big tussle with the local gang. Luckily for him there's an old man that spots what's going on and pretty much saves Cheung.

That old man actually works at the tea shop that Cheung is trying to buy. We start to realize this tea shop is run by 2 of the disciples of a master kung fu expert. This master has been in some sort of coma for decades or something. When the gang comes in to further intimidate the tea shop owners all hell breaks loose.

The fighting takes place all over the shop and two of the gang members even go to the great master's bedroom and try to kidnap him. That's when the master finally wakes from his coma and scares the gang away.

This movie then becomes a totally different movie where the master misidentifies Cheung to be his disciple and Cheung starts learning the way of kung fu. He starts to gain self confidence and understand the values of the kung fu school. Though he sees that the world has changed is it too late for the school to stay alive?

From the get go you can tell that there is a specific aesthetic to this movie that seems totally different from all the kung fu movies you've seen before. Well then again it could be a little familiar. They use a lot of older songs, really old texts and graphics. It's like this was supposed to be a 60's or 70's kung fu movie placed in everyday modern 2010.

It's kind of an interesting concept because a lot of the characters still hold the values of the old ways but you can tell they live in the more modern world. They question whether the old ways are still needed anymore in this fast and modern world. There's a changing of the guard and you can see that through the master pupil relationships.

I would have really liked to have subtitles for this movie because I feel like there was a lot I missed out in the dialogue as my Cantonese isn't the best. Unfortunately this isn't a very well known movie so I don't think it's very easy to find a subtitled version of this movie. I had to get this one all the way from Japan and they only had Japanese subtitles.

Still I was able to enjoy most of what was going on because the story was simple enough. If anything I was going to go into this one for the action because it's a kung fu movie.

For a martial arts movie the action actually works remarkably well. Despite the fact that some of the characters are extremely aged they did an admirable job. A lot of the impact of the moves were accentuated through loud sound effects along with in your face graphics and carefully timed pauses. Movies nowadays could really take a note from this movie because they didn't have crazy complicated fight scenes but they were able to deliver a very impactful hits and delivery.

Overall, I missed out on a lot of this movie. There were a few scenes that I think I would have found more hilarious if I knew the language better. The scenarios alone were pretty funny but I didn't understand what was going on. For that I unfortunately have to give this one a 6 out of 10. If I am able to find a subtitled version of this movie I'll give it another go.