Ling huan tong zi

Lin Hsiao-Lao was a cross-dressing actress of the 1980s who was forever getting cast as 'boy hero' characters in a series of low budget Taiwanese fantasy epics. I previously watched the delirious CHILD OF PEACH so I had some idea of what to expect with this one, and it's a film that doesn't disappoint, packed to the rafters with crazy action as it is.

The storyline? It defies comprehension for the most part, except to say that there's an evil wizard who goes around stealing souls and putting them in earthenware jars. Only the titular character and his juvenile apprentice friends have the power to stop the villain and his wicked army.

KUNG FU WONDER CHILD sets out to entertain and it certainly does that in spades. It's an effects film throughout, using copious wirework to show the main characters flying around the scene and doing insane moves and stunts. The magic element to the storyline is off the scale, with revived corpses, an animated dragon, a hopping vampire, a female spirit, a miniaturised adventure, plus all of those '80s-era laser effects. There's also plenty of toilet humour here too; I normally don't like it, but somehow it works in Asian films and is very funny. Kung fu star Jack Long and the lovely Japanese actress Yukari Oshima play in support, while the veteran kung fu helmer Tso Nam Lee directs.

KUNG FU WONDER CHILD (1989) stars Taiwanese "wunderkind" Lin Hsiao Lan, who also starred in the similarly-themed magical kung fu fantasies, MAGIC OF SPELL (1986) and MAGIC WARRIORS (1991). Here she plays the grandson (she always played male parts) of the cook at a taoist kung fu school. She picks up all kinds of skills and tricks simply by watching and observing. And she lures two of the students there into all sorts of mischief as her co-conspirators. The plot gets pretty complicated as a wandering maiden, with kung fu powers of her own, comes on the scene looking for her missing father and sister, whose disappearance is the work of a corrupt priest. Ghosts, spells, miniature sets and magical kung fu battles all figure in the action.

Lin Hsiao Lan, who carried the wonderful MAGIC OF SPELL on her own impressive little shoulders, is here forced to share the stage with two other formidable martial arts stars, Jack Long (7 GRANDMASTERS, NINJA CHECKMATE) as her grandpa, and Yukari Oshima (ANGEL, KICKBOXER'S TEARS), as the wandering maiden.

There are some clever scenes, including one where Grandpa uses miniature models of all the principals to get the two students to protect a ghost who'd been accidentally freed. At another point, the evil priest turns into a beautifully animated cartoon dragon.

Although I'm a big fan of both Jack Long and Yukari Oshima, I still found it disappointing that the ever-delightful Lin Hsiao Lan did not take center stage here. Also, the proceedings are simply not as inspired as MAGIC OF SPELL, although they're marginally more enjoyable than MAGIC WARRIORS (where Lin had to share so much screen time with a bratty kid), which, like WONDER CHILD, was directed by Lee Tso Nam (better known for old school kung fu efforts like EAGLE'S CLAW and CHALLENGE OF DEATH). This one also pales next to such similarly themed taoist kung fu spectacles of the 1980s as Sammo Hung's ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND and the Yuen Clan series that included MIRACLE FIGHTERS, TAOISM DRUNKARD, SHAOLIN DRUNKARD, and YOUNG TAOISM FIGHTER.

Before seeing this movie, I had NO idea that vampires hopped like bunnies.

All cultures have tales of vampires, but one is left wondering if the vampires in this movie bear any resemblance to authentic Asian folklore, or if the people who did this movie just made things up as they went along. There's a plot in there somewhere, something about a family of vampires being released a few hundred years too early to have properly done their time and become good--not that they seem so bad, anyway.

If you must have coherency, flawless production values, a classic story exquisitely told, and perfectly cast actors, this is not your movie. However, if you sometimes have craving for bizarre, unpredictable cheese, if a kid vampire with sunken eyes sounds tres kewel to you, if you could use a break from reality, this may be a great movie find for you. I found a truly classy DVD copy for $2.99 at Big Lots, obviously made from a VHS copy. This only enhanced the cheese experience.

One of the top-five kung fu movies of all time. This one's got it all: hopping vampires, a cool theme song, a musical number, a cheapo skeleton creature, toilet humor, a character named "Uncle Crazy", flying people, people shooting beams at each other, rocket launchers (really!), a pretty cool cel-animated dragon, and of course, plenty of old-fashioned kung fu goodness. I got kind of lost as to what was going on (the dodgy English subtitles didn't help anything), but I thoroughly enjoyed the film nonetheless. My favorite line in the film is when an old kung fu master guy f***s in Uncle Crazy's face, and Uncle Crazy says,"So bad smell". There's also the immortal,"Shut up! I am your master! I will urinate wherever I want!". This film may be kind of hard to find, but well worth the trouble. I highly reccomend this film if you like the weirder variety of kung fu movies, like Infra-Man, Fantasy Mission Force, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Young Taoism Fighter, Taoism Drunkard, Shaolin Drunkard, or Little Hero.