Buksorim namtaegwon

North And South Shaolin is an enjoyable and cheaply made kung fu flick. There is no doubt, a whole lot of much more well made, higher quality movies in the genre. But, you also could do a lot worse as well. The film is very cheap, poorly edited and storywise it sometimes is hard to tell what is going on. But, I say who cares, as the film delivers the goods with almost non stop fighting(that is sped up, so it looks crazier), Shaolin monks, ninjas, awesomely bad and hilarious English overdubbing and a bad guy with a blonde wig and big eyebrows. Cassanova Wong is the hero of this film and does a good job as the lead and in the fight scenes. This film is no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and won't win any awards, but I can't see this letting down kung fu fans.

Although this is a very cheap made film as many of the films from this era and genre were Wong makes this film enjoyable with his fight scenes, the plot is kind of hard to follow but you can keep up and random characters pop up without any kind of introduction but it all fits together. All and all not a very bad movie and I would reccomend any classic kung fu movie fan to atleast watch it once, who knows you might just want to watch it again.

SOUTH SHAOLIN VS. NORTH SHAOLIN (1984) is about a pair of Ming Dynasty princes smuggled out of northern China during the Qing takeover and separated as infants, with one raised as a prince-in-hiding and one raised by Shaolin monks and given no clue as to his real identity. The emphasis is on the prince who's a Shaolin monk (Casanova Wong) and follows his training in a northern Shaolin temple, his battles with Qing enforcers led by General Ma (Eagle Han), and the paths he crosses with his brother whom he rescues and shelters at one point. It doesn't have the most coherent narrative you'll find in any of these films. Long distances are traversed in a single cut. New characters pop up without any proper introduction, such as the female fighter and her father who care for the rescued prince at one point. Perhaps some scenes were cut from the edition I watched.

The VHS copy I have is from Arena Home Video and is in Mandarin with English subtitles that are somewhat grammatically challenged to begin with but are further undermined by being cut off on the sides of the frame. The video transfer is particularly poor. In this case, I'd prefer it was dubbed. Still, Casanova Wong as the prince-turned-monk is in fine form and gets to fight a lot of in-close kung fu battles with various opponents. The fights are fast and furious and fun to watch, with exaggerated sound effects to give them more punch. I didn't recognize any other cast members aside from Wong, although I've seen Eagle Han in several of his other credits. Wong, who hails from Korea, appeared in numerous Hong Kong films in the 1970s and '80s and was especially memorable in Sammo Hung's WARRIORS TWO (1978).

IMDb says this is a Korean film. Another website says Taiwan. The credits include "Lucky Star Film Co. (H.K.)" so I can't quite determine the film's actual origin. It could be a co-production of all three. Maybe there were different versions for different markets.