Cub Tiger From Kwang Tung is a 1973 Hong Kong

Cinema of Hong Kong

The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...

 martial arts

Martial arts film

Martial arts film is a film genre. A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently...

 action film

Hong Kong action cinema

Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. It combines elements from the action film, as codified by Hollywood, with Chinese storytelling and aesthetic traditions, to create a culturally distinctive form that nevertheless has a wide transcultural...

 directed by Chu Mu and starring Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

. Chan was 17 when the film was made in 1971, and it is considered to be his first starring role.

Background

Cub Tiger From Kwang Tung was filmed in Hong Kong in 1971, but only saw a limited cinema release two years later. The small independent release was shelved after its brief run and never received an international release. In the late 1979, in the wake of Chan's success in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by Yuen Woo-ping his directorial debut, who has since gained international stardom as the action choreographer for films such as Iron Monkey, Fist of Legend, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix series, Kill...

and Drunken Master

Drunken Master

Drunken Master, also known as Drunk Monkey In The Tiger's Eye, is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang Lee...

(both 1978), the film re-emerged at Hong Kong cinemas, in a poorly re-edited version with some newer footage of Dean Shek and Yuen Siu Tien

Yuen Siu Tien

Yuen Siu-tien was a Chinese martial arts film actor in the late 1970s. Yuen is perhaps best known as Beggar So in three films: Drunken Master, Story of Drunken Master and his final film Dance of the Drunk Mantis...

 spliced in, along with a rather obvious Jackie Chan double.

The amalgamated footage was sold to US film producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 Dick Randall, who dubbed and repackaged it, and gave it an alternative title, Master with Cracked Fingers

Master with Cracked Fingers

Master with Cracked Fingers , aka Snake Fist Fighter is a 1979 martial arts film directed by Mu Chu and starring Jackie Chan. It is often cited as being produced in 1971, 1973, 1974 or 1981. The original footage was filmed in 1971 and released in 1973 as Little Tiger of Canton...

. The rights were subsequently sold to 21st Century Distribution

21st Century Film Corporation

Not to be confused with 20th Century Fox Film Corporation21st Century Film Corporation was a small-scale theatrical distribution company formed sometime in the early 1970s as a production company and distributor.-History:...

 who gave this version of the film a brief run in US cinemas in 1981, under the title Snake Fist Fighter.

Since Chan became more popular in the West, particularly after the US release of Rumble in the Bronx

Rumble in the Bronx

Rumble in the Bronx is a 1995 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film starring Jackie Chan and Anita Mui. Released in the US in 1995, Rumble in the Bronx had a successful theater run, and brought Chan into the American mainstream...

(1996), the concoted film has seen large number of VHS and DVD releases from a wide variety of film distributor

Film distributor

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing...

s in the US and UK.

The original film, Cub Tiger From Kwang Tung was finally given an international DVD release for the first time in 2007. It was released in the UK (region 2) on Showbox Home Entertainment's Rarescope label. This is the complete original 95 minute film, as it was released in Hong Kong in 1973, without edits and additions. It contains the original Mandarin soundtrack and imbedded English/Chinese subtitles. Due to the poor quality of the print, some of the subtitles are chopped from the foot of the screen, so the dvd contains an additional set of subtitles which appear whenever the originals are cropped or missing.

Plot

Ah Lung (Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

) has been secretly training in martial arts, as his father (Tien Feng

Tien Feng

Tien Feng is a Hong Kong actor for 60 years. He left for Hong Kong from Taiwan and started his career...

) has forbidden him. Later, some local store owners ask Ah to help protect them from a greedy Chinese extortion ring. Ah discovers that the crime lord behind the extortion had killed his father years before and is determined for revenge.

Cast

Cast	Role
Jackie Chan Jackie Chan Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...	Ah Lung / Jackie (as Chan Yuan Lung)
Chan Hung Lit Chan Hung Lit Chan Hung-lit , also known as Chen Hung-lieh and Golden Chan, was a Shaw Brothers actor famous for portraying villains from the 1960s to 1980s. In his acting hiatus, Chan was involved in the garment industry. He later resumed his acting career by joining TVB in 1995, left the following year and did...	Chow Bin
Tien Feng Tien Feng Tien Feng is a Hong Kong actor for 60 years. He left for Hong Kong from Taiwan and started his career...	Lung's Foster Father
Yuen Biao Yuen Biao Yuen Biao is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist. He specialises in acrobatics and Chinese martial arts and has worked on over 80 films as actor, stuntman and action choreographer...	Pickpocket (as Bill Yuen)
Chun Chin	Uncle Xia
Chi Ming Wong	cameo
Mars Mars (actor) Mars , born Cheung Wing Fat is a Hong Kong actor, action director, stuntman and martial artist. He is one of Jackie Chan's best friends.-Early life:...	(as Fo Sing)