Dreadnaught

Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping

1981 1h 35mAction, Horror,

7.180%86%7.0

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A foul-tempered mute fugitive hides out amongst a theater troupe after his criminal wife got killed by the police. He sets his sights on a cowardly laundry man, and will not rest until he kills him, while donning a theatrical face paint.

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Dreadnaught Ratings & Reviews

jackmeatAugust 17, 2025
My quick rating - 6.5/10 I most likely would've waited on this one but since it has the "horror" tag attached to it, I am curious. Plus, I haven't watched a good old "kung fu" flick from back in the Saturday afternoon television days in a while. Rarely do you see such creativity in these types of movies, and from this time frame. Around the late 70s-early 80s, there were tons of these types of movies being exported out of Asia and being poorly dubbed and gobbled up in the USA. I have seen a lot of them, and this one really stands out for not only having a plot that is more than "Avenge my master's killing" but also showing off some very authentic cultural stylings. The fight scene with the lion costumes is nothing short of amazing. The movie itself follows a bad guy who is more or less a serial killer named White Tiger (Shun-Yee Yuen) who paints his face and goes around terrorizing and killing people. The authorities are their normal bumbling selves as they always are in these flix and provide the usual comic relief. When the White Tiger crosses paths with master Ka-Yan Leung and his student Tak-Hing Kwan, he is healed from an injury, but doesn't take to being grateful. This part of the side story introduces Mousy (Biao Yuen), who wants to learn how to fight and gets caught in the middle of this whole investigation. That is normally the extent of the plot of 5 of these movies, not one. I will say this flick did seem more like some very good quality fight scenes stitched together by a few side stories. Still, for any fan of martial arts flicks, this is a must-see/own. The final fight scene is also a marvel to watch and would be hard-pressed to be duplicated to this day. The costume work just looks incredible and also quite creepy at the same time. I would have liked this movie to keep a more constant tone throughout and not occasionally wander back into the silly slapstick crap that was completely not needed in this movie.

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Dreadnaught Trivia

Dreadnaught was released on March 5, 1981.

Dreadnaught was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping.

Dreadnaught has a runtime of 1 hr 35 min.

Dreadnaught was produced by Raymond Chow.

The key characters in Dreadnaught are Mousy (Yuen Biao), Leung Foon (Bryan Leung), Wong Fei-Hung (Kwan Tak-Hing).

Dreadnaught is an Action, Horror, Comedy film.

Dreadnaught has an audience rating of 8.6 out of 10.

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