For those of you expecting a film on the level of The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe, you should look elsewhere. If, on the other hand, you're in the mood for a total and utter piece of crap, then The Return of Shanghai Joe is the movie for you! And to think I had some assumption that this would be half as good as the original movie, well It's not even fit to be in the same state as that film.
It's basically boring and pointless that i was having a hard time trying to stay focused and awake enough to sit through it.
Another huge problem is replacing Chen Lee (the actor who played Joe in the original) with a poor knock-off that looks nothing like him or fight like him named Cheen Lie. I wonder why this is his only film credit. You might also remember that Klaus Kinski memorably played Scalper Jack in the original, but here he's just your average evil landowner that's in every spaghetti western. He seems almost as bored as I was with the material, but at least in his scenes there's an air of tension as you never quite know how he'll deliver a line or overact in any given moment. Tommy Polgár plays the salesman and is easily the most charismatic of the bunch. That's not saying a lot, but it does look like he was trying.
The Return of Shanghai Joe re-focuses itself on the dumb spaghetti western comedy sub-genre. The laughs just aren't there, instead everything just cruised by in a boring, energy-sapping haze. And the fights! God damn are they crap. Every fight in the early part of the film is scored by the opening theme song that truly must be heard to be believed. It's actually a pretty catchy song and I found myself singing it to myself after the film was over, and I did come to enjoy hearing the song play out over the incredibly awful fights, but even that wore on me after a while.
There are some good comedic lines, though I'm pretty sure the comedy here was unintentional. Where The Fighting Fists Of Shanghai Joe showed an understanding of both the western and the kung fu genres, The Return of Shanghai Joe shows the exact opposite. It's not competent at anything it attempts and is truly a chore of the highest order to sit through, but i did manage to sit through it. Hell, the original didn't have much of a story, but that movie was awesome. There are definitely worse movies than this, but this one feels a lot worse because of how great the first film was.
Never the less, i did manage to sit through it and the opening theme song was ok.
Conclusion - It can't live up to the first one.
Rated this 4/10.
