“Master With Cracked Fingers” has a rather confusing distribution story (even by martial arts movie standards). Originally released as “The Cub Tiger From Kwang Tung” in the early 70s, it was later re-edited and re-released multiple times with a host of different names including “Master With Cracked Fingers” and “Ten Fingers Of Death”. New scenes were filmed as well as some shots taken from “Drunken Master”. It stars a very young Jackie Chan (“Police Story”, “Twin Dragons”) and is entertaining despite being a mess.

Jackie Chan stars as a young warrior that is trained by an old beggar (Siu Tin Yuen “Drunken Master”) despite his father forbidding him from engaging in fighting. However, despite protests from his family, he will need all his strength to beat a gang of criminals.

Jackie Chan is very young here and this was before he was doing all the crazy stunts and creative fight choreography. This was at a time when he was doing more pure martial arts movies such as “Drunken Master”, “Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow” and “Dragon Lord”. Still, it’s very impressive to see him show off his moves. Sadly, the fight scene at the end features some stuntman, who is clearly not Jackie Chan. It’s fun to see Siu Tin Yuen in another Chan movie.

The editing makes this film a real mess and it’s so obvious when they are using stand-ins, stuntmen or footage from other Chan movies. It’s still not quite as noticeable as a Godfrey Ho movie such as “Ninja Terminator” or Bruce Lee’s “The Game Of Death”. Still, I have a soft spot for these more simplistic martial arts movies such as “Drunken Master” and the other films I mentioned. There’s something admirable about them because the fighting is so good despite the production overall being so cheap. If you liked the other early Chan films such as “Drunken Master” then you will enjoy “Master With Cracked Fingers” (or whatever it is called).