Kung-Fu Master (Arcade)

Because right from the get-go, it’s action, action, action. And action lived out in an atmosphere of total purity. There’s none of Yie Ar Kung-Fu’s button-mashy woolliness or Double Dragon’s regulated enemy AI. You punch, you kick, you fuck up the bad guys. You mis-time your punch or your kick and the bad guys fuck you up.

EXACTLY. Brucie. Honorary Rodent.

Because the bosses are ace. There’s a bloke with a pointed stick, then a bloke with a boomerang, then a big bald bloke with special kick-up-the-arse power, then a stupid hunchback wizard bloke… And only then, a bloke who actually seems able and willing to do kung-fu. Fabulous, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, ‘80s coin-op gloriousness.

Because the spooky, echoing laughter between some of the floors is so loud and distorted and comical, it’s accidentally quite scary.

Because if the bad guys get in too close, they don’t mess about with counter-attacks. They just hang on like single-minded zombie limpets, or fat boxers when they’re tired. Then, as this coagulated group-hug effect builds, they slowly drain your energy until you tumble to an unspecified doom.

Red hot, villain-on-protagonist frottage.

Because there’s a bit where you have to punch some butterflies to death. Pretty, fluttery bastards.

Because there are loads of stylish ways to kill the extra-cunty knife-throwers: two to the legs; one in the face followed by one to the legs; a thwack in the goolies followed by a jump-kick to the head (1000 lovely, show-offy points); or just a good, old-fashioned, take-that-you-twat one-two to the chops… I tell you now, this is where modern-day, combo-based beat-‘em-ups were born.

Because you get to punch violent children. Precocious bastards.

It’s the only thing they understand. That, and Dairylea.

Because you, oriental martial-arts megastar that you are, go by the name of Thomas and your exotic, kimono-clad, Far-Eastern woman-friend is called Silvia – not Sylvia. It’s the little things.

”Aw. Isn’t that nice? He’s chucking me a lolly”.

Because the punch and kick sounds are clearly, somewhere along the line, sampled from the lovely, chunky, cat-headbutting-an-anvil punch and kick sounds in Bruce Lee films.

And speaking of Bruce Lee… Because it’s all a bit like Game Of Death, where Lee’s character climbs up to the top of a pagoda thingy in Hong Kong, stoving in the faces of a procession of ‘boss’ characters – each of whom is a master of a different martial art.

Kung-Fu Master is closer to Lee’s original, pure vision for the film than the exploitative, disrespectful, posthumously cobbled-together, quivering great mound of monkey-spunk that it eventually became. A videogame that I enjoyed as a child which, with a bit of adult hindsight, sets right an indignity visited on one of my childhood heroes. I love that.

Game Of Death. Strangling the big bloke with the kick. And now you know where the
Kill Bill suit came from.

SICKBOY, October 2004.

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