It has been a while since I saw an amazing kung fu movie such as "Operation Scorpio." Featuring an excellent cast of actors/fighters with some incredible kung fu fight sequences, driven by a decent story about the over abused concept of a wannabe kung fu fighters, all this together makes "Operation Scorpio" an instant kung fu classic from the 90`s. There's not that much originality in the movie and even the story was something of a deja vu, but there's still a lot of interesting ideas in the movie that make it worth watching, specially if you are a fan of kung fu movies.

The movie might not be filled with kung fu fights from start to finish and most of the fighting takes place at the end of the movie but still the basic story at least succeeds to support the movie without being too boring. Not very original in terms of storyline, the movie tries to exploit the concept of the reject guy who wants to become a great kung fu fighter and some day find a kung fu master to teach him, in fact two masters in this case. After the long and hard training, our hero is now ready and has to save his girl from the evil mad man. Even if this premise might not look interesting at first sight, yes it is very clichéd, but it was well developed enough to make the story just enough interesting for the viewer. It's just a kung fu movie after all, so don't except an incredible intellectual storyline full of sub plots and unexpected events and you will probably be satisfied with the general storyline.

One of the surprising aspects of the movie were the characters, most of them were well designed and acted which made them very likeable. Kar Lok Chin, who played the main character, gives an excellent performance. Maybe his martial art skills were not very impressive but he was supposed to be an apprentice anyway so we can excuse him this time. As for his two masters, one was played by Frankie Chin, who also played one of the boss prisoners in "Story of Ricky" during the same year. The second master was played by Lau Kar Leung which directed (kind of) and starred in "Drunken Master 2" in the role of General Fu Wen-Chi in company of Jackie Chan. Both characters were excellent and well played but I really think that the more interesting of the two was Lau Kar Leung, probably because he had more development but also because his character was more charismatic and likable, everyone likes old kung fu teacher, no? As for the girl, she appeared more like a secondary character but the developing relationship between her and Yu Shu appeared believable and not too over acted, which is a good point.

Of course the real shining element in all the characters of the movie is The Scorpion King: That incredible Korean fighter Kim Won-Jun, who excels in Wu-shu and Taekwondo. This is truly the best kicker the Hong Kong cinema has ever had, too bad that he didn't do too many movies. He played a recent role in "China Strike Force," the latest Stanley Tong production, so maybe we will see him again very soon, I really hope. This guy is amazing, his flipping and kicking abilitiees are almost flawless, of course he used some wires but only to help him enhance the impossible moves that no one can do. I have heard that when Kim Won-Jun was young, he was a big fan of Hong Kong kung fu movies. He really liked those amazing moves that the actors and stunts man were executing on screen. But what he didn't know was that some of these moves were enhanced with the help of wires. With the time and a lot of hard practice he achieved to be able to do some of these spectacular moves without the help of wires. So when he arrived in Hong Kong, it was a real piece of cake for him to do these flipping and kicking tricks. If you like kung fu movies that show fighter with great kicking ability, you really have to see "Operation Scorpio!" Ken Lo in Drunken Master 2 was excellent, but Kim Won-Jun is even more amazing!

With a good casting such as this, you are probably expecting some incredible over-the-top fighting choreographies and I can assure you that the movie really delivered the merchandise. The movie starts right away with a couple of short fighting sequences but after that, it drags a little as we only see the development of Yu Shu who start to train like a mad man. The training part of the movie doesn't have a lot of action and seems a little slow but don't worry, the action kicks back at the end with more than 25 minutes of non-stop fighting. The last fighting sequences itself is really worth the viewing of the whole movie as you will witness the fights between the two masters of Yu Shu against Scorpio, the son of the evil gang leader. Most of these fights are traditional kung fu but the character of "Operation Scorpio" uses a couple of wires here and there to enhance the already amazing moves and it really looks great on screen. In my opinion, if the movie would had one or two more fights in the middle to give it little more kick to the slow pace of the story, this movie would have become an instant classic such as "Iron monkey" and "Drunken Master 2" for sure.

Even if the movie is not perfect, it's still an excellent kung fu movie. Only for his great characters, especially Won-Jun Kim with his great kicking ability, and all of the amazing combat sequences, "Operation Scorpio" really should have it place in your kung fu movie collection.