Kei moon duen gap

Shamed Royel Guardsman Kao after seeing his wife executed steals the young prince in order to flee safely from the Emporer's castle. After he's safe away on the beach he find's out that he inadvertently killed the young prince. so he takes the medallion and gives it to his nephew for safe keeping. This is where the real wackiness ensues. And wacky is the correct word. Bat-fu, 'faux' midget-fu, the Jar boy/girl, igniting chicken, and much more assault the senses. I liked this film a lot, and enjoyed many of Woo-Ping Yuen's other films as well. I eagerly await how he handles the Marvel comics based "The Hands of Shang-Chi"

My Grade: B+

DVD Extras: Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "Xian dai hao xia zhuan" (Executioners), "Lei ting sao xue" (Red Shield), and "Tie xue qi jing" (Road Warriors)

By the time it goes full-on with its fantasy slapstick nonsense, I feel like it's just a bit too late to care. It's also not super fun. The goofy stuff is like moderately fun, but also so sporadic. And the non-action stuff here exists in a tonal no man's land. If it's trying to be funny, it wasn't, and if there was an attempt at drama here, nothing ends up actually being dramatic or carrying weight.

Don't quote me on this, but it might be my least favourite Yuen Woo-Ping movie I've seen to date. Even the action - though technically not terrible - kind of underwhelms, based on what you might hope to see.

One of the few redeeming parts is the character of urn man. He's like a giant urn with a man inside, and so the urn walks around and his head sticks out the top sometimes.

You only really get little bursts of craziness. If it had just been a non-stop fever dream of a film with that kind of energy entirely throughout (I'm thinking Holy Flame of the Martial World, or whatever that one's called), maybe we'd actually have something here.

The Yuen clan broke the barrier between "old school" and "new school" kung fu movies with this production. The difference is the creativity and the special effects. The creativity starts with the "Jar Man" fight sequence. The special effects have nothing to do with CGI. These are amazing effects using puppet techniques with wires, pyrotechnics using simple compounds and oils, and just wiring up the stunt men to do quick gravity defying sequences (or simply setting their pants on fire). The creativity here is really top notch. Not to forget the fights, the swordsmanship is almost as good as the grandmaster of grandmasters Liu Chia-Liang. To top it all off it's just plain funny. I particularly like the homage to the ancestor Simon Yuen, though it had nothing to do with anything. I watched a subtitled version that was widescreen but despite the labeling it was probably a copy. I'll be looking for and buying an authorized DVD if one exists.

April 2021

Miracle Fighters is an amazing martial arts comedy, 1 of 4 made by the Yuen Clan around this time, they are all fabulous by the way, this may just be the best one.

So much inventive stuff going on, and everything works, yuen cheung yan , yuen shun yee and yuen yat chor all star along with leung ka yan.

I cannot praise this highly enough, obviously its not going to be to everyones tastes, but it certainly is to mine, fun fun fun all the way, and if you love this, also check out, drunken tai chi, shaolin drunkard and taoism drunkard, the other 3 yuen clan titles.

10 out of 10.

Not really an outstanding piece. Some of the fights are really fun and inventive, particularly the Jar Man, and the pseudo-midget fu. Sunny Yuen plays the heavy as usual. His Sorcerer Bat character has some good moves, and comes off as a more intelligent and controlled version of his villain in Taoism Drunkard. The final sorcerer's competition is mighty goofy and entertaining, and there's less reliance than usual on the crossed-eyes, big fake mole brand of humor. Still, Taoism Drunkard is much wackier, and Dreadnaught is much more coherent, as well as having better fighting. Worth seeing if you like the Yuen Bros, or bizarro cinema in general.