Shi ba yu luo han

THE EIGHTEEN JADE CLAWS OF SHAOLIN is a rather stodgy kung fu epic made by a Hong Kong crew in Taiwan. It's a film that desperately tries to emulate a Shaw Brothers production although the quantity of lacklustre action means that it can't hope to hold a candle to the quality of that studio's output. It's acceptable enough for the genre but also one of those films which is instantly forgettable despite the best efforts of the cast and crew.

The plot is simple but needlessly complex in places. A cruel killer is going around bumping off genteel folk, so an upstanding hero tracks him down to wreak vengeance. Although the way he teams up with a female fighter who has the misfortune to be dubbed with an annoying voice in the English version. The two fight at first but then work together, and of course it all ends up with a climactic fight with the bad guy.

The title refers to some mysterious jade artefacts which actually have little to do with the revenge story and don't impinge on the action much either. They're only mentioned towards the end of the movie. Polly Shang is good value as the female fighter and it's just a shame about that English dub while Chang Yi is as unremarkable as ever. The film features Lo Lieh doing one of his many 'guest villain' parts and as usual he's the best thing in it.

Yet another numbered kung-fu film, following such numbered epics such as the classic "Five Deadly Venoms", or even "Five Fingers Of Death". This leads me to believe that Eighteen Jade Arhats was named as such only to capitalize on the fact above. These arhats (there's eighteen of them...) are jade figures that give some special powers pertaining to kung-fu techniques. The only mention of them is in the last third of the film! Maybe something is lost in the translation. But we can also look at the fact that instead of using these eighteen arhats to an advantage plot-wise (i.e. having eighteen different people possess a single arhat and one man fighting to get them all), the movie splits them down the middle, one person has nine, and another has nine. Could have called it the TWO Jade Arhats as far as I'm concerned.

The lack of Arhat involvement is my only complaint. It's yer basic kung-fu flick. An elder is killed, and one man has to track down the killer, along the way he meets a woman and they both use kung-fu to kick the hell out of everyone who they think did the killing. Same old, but I don't think any other way in kung-fu movies would work, now would it? If "Five Deadly Venoms" is gone, and Bruce Lee is on a vacation from your video store shelf, you can give this one a shot. Not the best...but follows the perfected techniques.

EIGHTEEN JADE may not be as classy as a Shaw Bros epic, but there's an interesting blending of the murder-mystery that makes the movie worth catching. A white-maned powerhouse Lord goes off to duel with a swordsman rival and ends up being murdered. The Lord's house then sets about hiring assassins to kill the rival, whom they believe is the back-stabbing killer. Along the way, two young warriors (probably the most uninteresting, and in the girl's case, annoying of the characters) are hired but are unsure that the swordsman rival is the murderer. The two then begin to question likely suspects, other rivals of the Lord, who may have been involved.

The jade arhats are a side-plot involving the girl warrior and her murdered family. She is on a mission of revenge, but the contrivance does lead the warriors to the true killer.

Because of the pompous, snide "heroes," there is no suspense when they are endangered. However, this aside, the various revelations they uncover, and the final climatic battle with the killer, are expertly-handled. The mystery experiment is not wasted.

To save you the trouble an arhat is one who is worthy in a religious way or even attained nirvana in Buddhism.

The movie starts with Li Lung-Hua working out (only six films) with Polly over the opening credits and loud music. He uses a strange multi-armed contraption. The two meet on the road to old town at night. There are more fights. It seems Li Lung-Hua was on his way to a duel and the opponent sent assassins in advance. He kills them all but someone thinks Chang Yi did it. LLH wants to know who gave the orders to kill him. There is a strange walking on large balls fight that Polly does.

So if I send a man to kill you and I see he has failed and he is standing right next to you and about to reveal my name to you, why would I throw a knife to kill him before he talks instead of just throwing the knife to kill you?

My copy is a poorly panned chopped sided VHS to digital file. First fights are too dark and too close. In fact - all the fights are like that though the rest is watchable.

Suitable only for hard core fans of the genre and I do not recommend it.