Shaolin contre Mantis

This was a wonderfully entertaining movie. In most traditional respects, it was a complete disaster. The editing (including the sound editing) is the worst I have ever seen/heard in a movie. Whoever chose the cats who dubbed this in English was apparently drunk as well - most of them sounded clinically depressed (or like a bunch of morons). But the whimsical roles and performances of Gordon Liu and the drunken master more than compensated for the monumental failures. This remains one of my all-time favorite gongfu movies.

Awesome Chia Hui Liu movie the fights are great.Now Albeit it is a low budget and the editing and dubs are pretty weak stuff.However the bad parts of this movie are just plain funny and the good parts wow.I would have to say the fight sequences in this movie are highly realistic no phony jumps or extraordinary feats.What you see is just good old plain Gung FU.And Gordon looks great in this so do all the actors as far as the Gung Fu.Even the story is decent I suspect it had a very low budget and slim timetable to make it.Don't expect polish there isn't much do expect bad dubs(Eng. Version),cheap camera tricks and a very brief ending!You will also see Gordon at his best and the one handed fighter is to good to be missed!

My children and I are big fans of Gordon Liu; in fact, one of the first Chinese kung-fu movies that we've ever seen together was Shaolin Drunken Monk. It's been sitting on the top shelf for years. Last night, we watched it again for the first time in years.

The plot was the standard revenge plot; however, the martial arts sequences were pretty good, especially the drunken boxing sequences. The most distracting part of the movie was the dubbing. Where is it written that every voice has to sound vastly different from every other voice...to the point where they were sounding cartoonish.

And worse, the characters developed British accents over time. They started with American accents and by the end of the flick, they were all sounding like David Niven...

Also, the ending was standard for a Gordon Liu movie: It looks like the movie was over when they suddenly ran out of film...

Excellent mix of comedy, fighting, and bad dubbing! Seriously though, any fan of old school kung fu will enjoy this. Enjoy it for the many fights throughout the movie (including a person being killed mere moments into the films beginning!) And for the excellent quality of said fights! No fake fighting to be had here thats for sure. And best of all, there is a bonus commentary track by Ric Meyers of kung fu insider magazine. (who gave the movie the title Plan nine from outer china) In my opinion thats the best part, as I learned stuff about the genre that I never knew before. You also can most likely find this movie cheap. So go out and find a copy for yourself! Look for the Taiseng release as it is the one I own (and has the audio commentary) on DVD.

Gordon works out under a waterfall. A man with one hand kills a guy. Gordon kidnaps a girl for revenge on her father. The backstory is Gordon's family was killed, they thought they drowned him but now he is back and he knows kung fu.

I always start my review with a summary of the opening action. This is to make sure we are talking about the same movie. Many of these movies have alternate titles and many titles are similar or have nothing to do with anything going on in the movie.

I am having a problem with the title of this movie at IMDb. It is currently listed as "The 36th Chamber:The Final Encounter", but the picture on the DVD is labeled "Shaolin Drunken Monk" which is the correct title. Other alternate titles are incorrect. I am using HKMDB as an alternate source and they are usually more accurate in regards to these movies.

My copy is the Ocean Shores VHS release English dubbed and converted to a computer video file. It is not the A-team of voice actors but they did a good job.

The story line makes a good start but the second flashback destroys the pace. One flashback can be okay but two, especially when so extended, never works. My only other complaint is the drunken boxing that has nothing to do with the fighting until the final three minutes.

The fights are outstanding and make up for any other minuses. Overall I think the movie still barely amounts to a knick less than average for the year and genre.