Shao Lin chuan ren

Watch this movie for the action sequences. The storyline and characters are simplistic but adequate for purpose in this type of shows. The background story is a palace intrigue in which the legitimate emperor was deposed by an evil prince. This sort of things doesn't need elaboration. It is enough that we know who the bad guy is and wait to watch his ass kicked. The costume and setting is probably based on the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD)... the kingdom of Western Hsia was referred to. What I normally do with this kind of movies is to simply scan through the plot in my first viewing and then re-visit the fight sequences. There were many great fights... like a Cirque du Soleil performance, some of the choreographed fights were fantastic - very imaginative. Fun.

A cool film, no doubt, designed by the Shaw Bros. Superhumans abound, from the Ninth Prince and his iron glove whose two entended fingers can snap swords like bamboo, to an aquatic assassin who fights with two herringbone-cleavers, to the intertwined mass of the 18 Shaolin monks whose combined bodies create an unstoppable single fighter that protects the secrets of their Temple. You even have a Chinese exorcism, complete with possessed young girl slashing off heads with long needle-like claws, and this only a brief sub-plot.

The final confrontation alone, between the film's two young fighting heroes and the evil Ninth Prince, astride an ornate royal transom that turns into a sword-shooting, body-crushing battering ram, makes the movie well worth seeing. A groove.

This little film has stuck with me for decades. It's basically everything Shaw Brothers, rolled into one hilarious, action-packed, visually stunning masterpiece.

For those unfamiliar with the Shaw Brothers, this movie contains over the top kung fu (or gung fu/ gong fu if you want to get technical), great slapstick comedy, and a hint of the paranormal. Tang Chia's directing style is so unique, and actually has great control over his actors.

It took me years to find the name of this movie back in the infancy of the internet, as I had a bootleg copy... I have a copy bought from Amazon now so there's that fix.

Definite must watch, even if you're not big into fists and kicks, because at least you'll laugh your socks off.

So the story goes, a bunch of children get chopped up and brutally killed because a couple of them are actual princes. Lo and behold two princes actually survive the whole ordeal and they grow up and learn weird @$$ kung fu and seek revenge against some guy with some golden finger weapon or some crap and blah blah blah and so forth. This is one of three movies directed by Shaw Brothers veteran Tang Chia and yes I wouldn't be surprised if the producers fed this guy crack before making these movies. I like this one because of the insane kung fu action and the insane amount of special-effects this movie has to offer which I think is a lot better than those dumb@$$ Marvel movies. "Nyuh! CGI, special effects." So gay. The story was pretty good too and easy to follow but still follows the same formulaic pattern like all other kung fu movies do which is about learning kung fu and seeking revenge. But who cares. Highly recommended kung fu movie with a lot of crackhead crap in it. Enjoy.

This film is a perfect example of mistitling, which is too bad, considering that it's quite good. My local video store has about 100 to 150 tapes in it's "Martial Arts" section, and only about 4 or 5 are worth renting, including this one.

Anyone looking 'only' for a ninja movie should steer clear as there are no ninjas in this film, nor any deathmasks. It actually looks like a Chinese epic, concerning two young princes who must fight an older prince to regain the throne that he cheated them out of when they were mere babes. Some might say this film has too much humor to be effective, but I wouldn't. For me, a "martial arts" film without humor is like a hot dog without mustard. For example, "Enter the Dragon" seemed very good 20 years ago, but now I can barely watch it.

The alternate title "Shaolin Prince" seems perfect. I've watched this film about 6 times in about two months, and have not tired of it yet.