Les Invincibles de Shao-Lin

Typical plot great kung fu. Another almost 80's film shot with 60s technology.

A very under-rated martial arts film, its got great action and humour and I strongly recommend any martial arts movie fan to watch this. It is true that majority of the fighting in this film uses sticks and has very little hand to hand combat but nevertheless its a good movie and great action. I only wish that more time and money could've been spend to give the the movie more of a story line i.e. some romance which was evident between the two main characters in the film. The ending could have been longer and better. The English dubbing could have been improved, but hey I would keep their funny accents since those give the movie humour. I agree this film is better than a lot of more so called good martial arts movies like Big Boss.

The movie starts quickly with the white eyebrows gang appearing invincible. Cut to the narrator and demonstration of various "stick" fighting weapons and techniques. Back to the movie and Don Wong is more interested in gambling and having fun rather than learning his family's tradition of "stick" fighting. Chang Yi wants to destroy all the "stick" fighting families. Don can "stick" fight but he is not good enough to inherit the family's most valued POLE so his family disowns him. (He should have known this day was coming but it is a surprise.)

He is now wandering, broke and homeless. He encounters Kam Kong and after a fight they buddy up. Kam's uncle has a school that comes under attack. Don trains hard to regain the family's respect and ties. If there was a reason for this change in character it was lost in the dubbing or it was never there in the first place.

There are more story lines but why bother? The whole point is for Don to come of age and return to his family as a master of the Shaolin pole. The other story lines are just filler material for in between the fights. They are not interesting and they don't augment the action at all.

The fights are fabulous. The pole is my favorite weapon and the choreography here is all top notch. The fights are all the movie really has going for it in my opinion. Still I rate it about average and recommend it for fans of the genre.

When I watched this movie it was called Fists of Shaolin, which is odd because not a single punch is thrown in the entire film. However, if stick fighting is your thing then this movie is for you. I couldn't possibly comment on the authenticity of the fight scenes but they are certainly entertaining, especially the final duel. All the usual ingredients are present-bad dubbing, ridiculous characters etc. yet a lot of the humour appears to be intentional. The villain is a real highlight, sporting the trademark long white beard and hair which is so popular amongst evildoers in martial arts flicks. Although the story isn't particularly original and I wouldn't be surprised to learn the score was stolen from another movie I thoroughly recommend this film.

This is a pretty typical early Hong Kong kung-fu film - i.e. Young man who looks like Bruce Lee has to fight a bad guy. However, the fighting sequences are quite good, and the dubbed English version, which I saw has quite a lot of humour. Although the picture quality isn't too good, I found it better than, for example, Bruce Lee's 'The Big Boss'. 6/10.