Fo jia xiao zi

This is probably the best directed film I've seen yet from Shaw hack director Lo Mar. It also seems to have been his last film. Most of his films benefit from an enthusiastic cast of martial artists with plenty of action from them. This film is no exception and much of the sloppy directing that bedevils his other films is surprisingly absent here.

A baby boy is left on the steps of a Shaolin monastery by a mad woman who promptly expires. The chief monk decides to take the baby in and raise it. Cut to twenty years later and the young man is sweeping the steps. He hasn't been brought up as a monk rather as a lay student. The man is quirky and the young monks have taken to calling him "Crazy Guy". How thoughtful. The chief monk has trained him in the 18 Lohan style but since Crazy Guy has such a hard time getting along with the other students, the chief monk sends him out into the world to fend for himself! Crazy Guy (that's his name!) finds himself protecting a young man from the local gangsters. The town elders are so impressed with his kung fu skills that they invite him to stay and run a vegetarian restaurant. Crazy Guy accepts the offer and is now called "Crazy Master"! The gangsters are not so happy about this and further enraged when Crazy Master gives shelter to an escaped prostitute. And so the action continues.

Action is not in deficit in this movie, there's lots of fights and jumping around. The fighting is very, very unrealistic and resembles Peking Opera. Lots of flips, tumbles, flying leaps with multiple actors doing these things at the same time. The cast is very agile with the weakest movement from a couple of the comic villains (not the super bad guys) and the heroine. The acting is broad and loud, typical for a film like this. The movie gets serious for the last 15 minutes but the rest is a comedy of sorts.

Not even near a masterpiece but it never pretends to be trying. Fun.

The movie opens with a baby left on the steps of the Shaolin Temple. The monks raise him up "because he is a boy" and I can't imagine what would have happened if he wasn't. In the next scene he is grown up and none of the other students like him. They call him "maniac" but this is also translated as "crazy kid" though nothing about his personality reflects it. After learning some kung fu he is sent out into the world.

I have been watching martial arts movies for decades, have a collection of thousands and have written hundreds of reviews here as of this date. Yet I never even knew this Shaw Brothers film existed until a few weeks ago. I tried to obtain the best copy but it seems there is only one choice available. This is a DVD with the company names "Red Sun" and "Shaolin Collection" on the box but it is really just a bootleg. The video is excellent but the audio is a mess. Some of it is English dubbed and some is subtitled. The English dub sounds like it was recorded over a bad telephone land line connection. Even the Chinese audio dialog is below standard. Regardless the video is what counts and as long as the audio is understandable or the subtitles readable no problem.

This is a movie only for the fans and comes in below average. If you have not already seen a few hundred of these type movies this one will leave you scratching your head until the end if you do make it to the end. The plot and characters are flimsy, one dimensional, and simplistic. The martial arts choreography is well directed and executed and looks totally unrealistic and over-done. On the other hand if you have seen a lot of these movies and know what goes in to making one it will get your respect. Shaw Brothers at that time had the greatest stable of stunt performers, actors, props, and film makers ever assembled. In this movie a bunch of "D list" people used about one week of time and two drops of sweat to put on film a movie that contemporary production companies could only dream of doing,