A Chama Sagrada do Kung Fu

Because of some of the plot beats present in Holy Flame of the Martial World, you might expect it to be a straightforward martial arts movie. This is because it contains main characters who are out for revenge, a magical object/MacGuffin that many of the characters are after, and people needing to participate in training montages around the halfway point in order to be stronger for the final action scenes.

However, the way Holy Flame of the Martial World plays out makes it very much unlike your average martial arts movie. It has some wild fantasy elements, it doesn't take itself very seriously at all, and it's all edited and paced together in a way that's so quick I sometimes felt overwhelmed. It feels like the horror-comedy Hausu/House if it also had action sequences, with frantic and very goofy scenes that make for great entertainment.

If anything, it might have been too much of a sensory overload for me, but I wasn't expecting it to be so crazy. If I'd had known, I probably wouldn't have watched it right before bed. Being a little more alert might not have made it make perfect sense (maybe it's not supposed to), but it might've helped a little.

Oh well. It was still a very fun watch, and certainly one of the crazier martial arts movies I've seen during my latest binge (might even be more flat-out ridiculous than Super Inframan, but I also don't find it quite as charming as that sci-fi spectacle).

Wild fantasy wuxia flick from the eighties. It checked all the boxes for a good kung fu flick: Revenge, training sequence, soap opera twist, vivid florescent 80's colors (I think I saw some headbands & leg warmers on a few female fighters). What a great walk down memories from my childhood.

A latter-stage fantasy from Shaw and it's a real hoot. A youthful Max Mok plays an upstanding hero raised by Phillip Kwok, playing a legendary figure with an impressive "ghostly laugh" technique. There's plenty of back story in the tale of separated siblings, rival clan leaders, power-hungry megalomaniacs, revenge and magical weaponry. The pacing is super-fast and this one's chock-full of wacky special effects and even crazier fight scenes that take wirework to the next level. It's cheap at times, extremely cheesy and thoroughly cheerful with it; what's not to love?!

Eighteen years ago, the leaders of a number of martial arts clans captured and killed a young couple who refused to give them "the manual"; the couple had a son and a daughter, each of whom were taken by a rival clan to be raised and trained in the martial arts. Now, the youngsters are 18 and ready to find the weapon that will allow them to avenge their parents' deaths - but first they must fight, among other things, a black-clad English-speaking mummy, flying Chinese ideograms, treachery both within and outside of their clans, and maybe even each other…. This is one of the hilarious martial arts movies made by the famed Shaw Brothers in the 1980s, who attempted to revive interest in the form by throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the mix. By this time in their careers, they were also playing with special effects (as a result of the success of the original "Star Wars" film) and the results were sometimes spectacular and sometimes spectacularly awful! A great deal of fun, but don't try to find any logic or rationale in the story or your head will surely explode!

HOLY FLAME OF THE MARTIAL WORLD (1983) is a Shaw Bros. martial arts fantasy spectacular in the vein of ZU WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983) and BUDDHA'S PALM (1982, also reviewed on this site). Characters don't so much walk as fly and don't so much deliver punches or kicks as shoot powerful supernatural rays from their swords, fingers or palms (depending on how well cultivated their "inner powers" are). There are probably more special effects per foot of film than in the two earlier films I cited. The action introduces eight major characters and at least that many minor ones and throws the fantasy martial arts action at us at such a furious pace that by the time it all ends at 85 minutes, we're immensely satisfied but still a bit greedy for more.

The plot has to do with two siblings, a boy and a girl separated as babies when their parents were killed by two villains and then raised by two rival martial arts masters (including one of the killers) and trained for a duel--to be conducted when the children reach the age of 18--to see who gets control of both the Yin and Yang Holy Flame Swords. The boy sibling, played by young Max Mok (of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA 2 & 3 fame), is raised by Phantom (Philip Kwok/Kuo Chui from the Five Venoms), whose chief weapon is his "ghostly laugh," while the sister (played by fighting actress Yang Ching Ching from EIGHT-DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER) is raised by Jin Yin of the Erh Mei clan (played by Liu Hsueh-hua). Interestingly, the Erh Mei sect is all female and is stocked with some of the most beautiful starlets seen in HK film. Actress Liu Hsueh-hua, who plays the aged, white-haired, but still-powerful Grand Master of the Erh Mei Sect, was all of 23 at the time of filming.

Max Mok's love interest is a young woman he saves from an attack and who practices a form of "snake bladder" kung fu. She is played by Mary Jean Reimer, aka Weng Ching Ching, a cute and perky actress (who was 18 at the time) who provides some of the film's best comic scenes. Another great HK actress of the time, Candy Wen Hsueh-erh (so impressive in SWORDSMAN AND ENCHANTRESS) appears as the mysterious black-clad Golden Snake Boy who pops up to help the good guys from time to time. Also on hand are kung fu vets Jason Pai Piao (as Monster Yu) and Chan Shen (as the head of Shaolin Temple), in addition to Philip Kwok.

The film was directed by Lu Chun Ku, who also directed SECRET SERVICE OF THE IMPERIAL COURT (1984, also reviewed on this site). It's a little lower-budgeted than usual for Shaw Bros. costume spectacles but more than makes up for it with an abundance of sheer imagination. Based on a Hong Kong comic book, it has all the color, flash, action, and fantasy-style violence of the best comic books. If you've seen and liked BUDDHA'S PALM and ZU WARRIORS, or Chor Yuen's lavish swordplay adventures (THE MAGIC BLADE, CLANS OF INTRIGUE, WEB OF DEATH, et al), then you're ready for HOLY FLAME. Just don't forget to practice your "ghostly laugh."