A Juan with his two close friends A Mao and A Gou travel from Guangdong to Shanghai to find work; unfortunately, there is not much call for lion dancers in the big city. So, they take whatever poorly paid jobs they can to live from day to day, plus of course whatever they can afford whatever is left, they send home to their families. This has become their everyday battle as they try to survive in Shanghai. Juan is constantly sending money home for his sick father’s medical bills; this gives him a purpose and a determination to keep going no matter what life throws at him and his friends.
While helping Xiaoyu the daughter of a Kung Fu Master – who is as equally fierce as she is intelligent and senior disciple Zhang Wate from the struggling Zhen Kung Fu Gym put on a display of Kung Fu. A Juan unintentionally gets involved in a feud between this small struggling traditional Kung Fu school and the more modern combat gym ran by the wealthy Jin Muyang, the Jinxin Fighting Club. He and his disciples have humiliated the Kung Fu masters of Shanghai, saying there is no room for outdated Kung Fu in modern combat.
Xiayou sees hope in A Juan when he shows his skills from Lion Dancing to help her in an Altercation with some of Jin`s men lead by the seemingly unbeaten champion of Shanghai Xiao Zhangyang. Juan has the foundation to learn Kung Fu. So she convinces him to enter the Shanghai Fight Night competition. Jin Muyang is not going to make it easy by any means, but under the training from Zhang Wate, who was one of the fighters humiliated but his eyes were injured by Xiao. A Juan steers himself towards the final ultimate fight, he must train hard, to be prepared for this, the fight of his life!
Right let’s not get bogged down with the retitling of the film for its release outside of China, the new title suits the film very well. Don’t complain about the dubbing either into English. All animation is dubbed; never understood that one from people.
Anyway, The Kung Fu kid is a traditional Kung Fu film through and through, from the bested humiliated master, to the over the top villains running the town. To the working class underdog getting trained to defeat the bad guys and I loved it. Of course, there is a love interest as well with both A Juan and Xiaoyu becoming very close as the film goes on. There are so many nice nods to Bruce Lee that it just made me smile from start to finish. There`s even a poster of Bruce in the Zhen Kung Fu Gym, that is outstanding for me right there. Our hero must adapt both modern combat with traditional Kung Fu to overcome the nasty villains and the big cooperation that uses fighting for sport and of course for money, plus crowd pleasing entertainment. They don`t want to preserve what Kung Fu is and what it stands for in this modern world. They in for a lesson from A Juan – it is great stuff. Everything flows so well, the animation is so vivid, pus the camera work for the fight scenes are just outstanding. Honestly found myself on the edge of my seat a few times during these fights. Now, one big thing every old school Kung Fu film has is a training sequences, this film takes that further as he has to train after each fight in the competition to adapt to the next opponent to has a different style for A Juan to content with. I honestly forgot at times that I was watching animation; you get so engrossed into the story, the characters and the exceptional fight chorography.
An absolute delight to watch from start to finish, The Kung Fu Kid is a must watch for any Kung Fu film fan. It really caught be by surprise just too how good it is.
Out on Digital 11th August and DVD & Blu ray from 15th September 2026 from our friends at Well Go Usa
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