If this is the movie I’m thinking of, I think I saw it under yet another name which I don’t remember, something about “Chinese vs Japanese” which is probably why I never found it again.
You’re right about how enjoyable it is and how it reflects the husband and wife’s cultural differences. Watching this is one of my good memories with my ex-wife, seeing it together in a dinky Chinatown theater over 30 years ago, laughing at some of the genuinely hilarious scenes, and arguing good-naturedly about the merits of the different martial artists on the Chinese and Japanese sides.
The whole segment about Drunken Gods fighting, where the hero drags his friend down to the slums and makes him pick a fight with the drunken beggar who’s a Drunken Gods master, so he can take notes on the style, is laugh-out-loud funny. “I didn’t get that last bit, can you attack him again?” “He nearly killed me!” “Go on, hit him again!”
Some of the guys they recruited to play Japanese martial artists clearly had little idea of what they were doing, but when the ninja finally came on, my wife and I both went “Whoa, this guy really knows his stuff!” As I remember, he moved with so much authority - balance, speed, and control - that you could see that he would easily have won that fight if the script didn’t require he lose.
Good times, good times.
