Miss, Please Be Patient

                                                             1981
                                              Director: Lee Hyung Pyo
                   Starring: Kim Tai Chung, Jeong Yun Hui, Kwan Young Moon

                                                   
For awhile now, I had been aware that Korea had it's own martial arts movie industry back in the 70s and 80s, somewhat similar to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unfortunately, my exposure to them has until recently, been very limited. This is mostly because they've been tough to track down. Another reason however, is that word of mouth has been fairly negative. I kept hearing the same two complaints; terrible plotting and bad fight choreography. When I finally caught up with a couple of them, I found myself in agreement. So when I had the chance to catch Miss, Please Be Patient, I didn't exactly jump at the chance. As it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised.

Miss, Please Be Patient is a 1981 modern action comedy that's actually alot of fun. It stars Kim Tai Chung. Kim is a terrific martial artist who Hong Kong fans will recognize as one of Bruce Lee's stand ins in Game of Death as well as taking the starring role of Bruce Lee's brother in the Game of Death 2 (aka Tower of Death) which I consider the best of the Lee exploitation films (hardly high praise, but better to be the best at something bad than worst at something good). Kim also played the ghost of Bruce in the absolutely terrible film, No Retreat No Surrender. Miss, Please Be Patient is a good vehicle for Kim as he gets to show off his humorous side without sacrificing the action. The film also features "Mad Korean" Kwan Young Moon as a villainous henchman though surprisingly, he's not given that much to do and does not have the really big time match with Kim's character that I was expecting.

As far as the plentiful fight scenes go, they're very good. Maybe not quite up to the standard of what was being shown in Hing Kong at the time, but much better than my previous exposure to Korean martial arts cinema. If there are more Korean films like this one, I'll need to check them out.

The story has to do with Kim's character getting involved with a rich girl. They meet "cute" and have several run ins before deciding they like each other, blah, blah, blah.  Turns out, she is the daughter of a man who runs a shipbuilding company. He is killed by his assistant who then kidnaps her.  Kim along with the woman's ass kicking femme friend sets out to rescue her. In one scene, Kim goes undercover as a woman; NOT a nice sight! Well, at least this proves that Jackie Chan didn't have the market cornered for such things.

Containing a few genuine laughs to go along with the mucho fight scenes, Miss, Please Be Patient shapes up as a winner for fans of modern day martial arts action comedies.

                                                         *** / ****