18 Fingers of Death!

An amiable and amusing mockumentary, 18 FINGERS OF DEATH stands roughly in the same relation to Kung Fu movies as SPINAL TAP does to rock music. Low rent action star Buford Lee (James Lew, familiar from supporting roles BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS and TRAFFIC), sporting a certifiable Bruce Lee accent, is trying to get his new martial arts film 18 FINGERS.. off the ground. His travails are recorded by first time documentary maker, ever enthusiastic fan Ronald Mack (Maurice Patten). Along the way there are gentle parodies of martial arts heroes 'Stephen Seafood' 'Chuck Snorris' and most memorably, 'Antonio Bandana' etc, extracts from Buford's previous releases and scenes of the rehearsal and shooting of his latest one. Much of the acting on offer here is fine and the cinematography is excellent too (my DVD box claims the ratio is 4:3 but it is actually 1.85:1). The relationship between Lee and Mack is what gives the film its gravity – one especially relishes the scene when the star proudly shows him his collection of treasured Kung Fu memorabilia, including 'the actual socks worn by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon' (sadly unwashed) - and the obvious affection shown the genre by the principals shines through constantly. It's a shame that the film somewhat runs out of steam at the end, especially once Mack has left the story. Occasionally too, jokes could have been sharper, a fact especially true of the late, extended fight scene between Bandana and Lee which plays out the old farting routine for too long, its introduction a sure sign that invention is flagging. One misses the insane surreality which appeared in KUNG POW its absence due, perhaps wisely, to 18 FINGERS' recognition that such elements would appear somewhat jarring in the context of a supposed factual format. But the buoyant Patten is a real find, one of the best things in the picture in fact, clearly a talent to watch, Lew's more restrained performance allowing his co star his head. On my copy some of the action scenes seemed a bit dark, but this is not too much of a distraction. All in all, this is worth watching, with no real slow patches, although as one might expect martial arts fans – and lovers of straight-to-video chock socky - will laugh the most.

This movie is absolutely horrible. Let me clarify, the first 20 minutes that I forced down were absolutely horrible. This movie is about as interesting as air. It's sad that it compares itself with Kung Fu Hustle. Using the same font and graphics layout as the Kung Fu Hustle DVD did. Don't be fooled. This is just a wanna-be decent movie hiding beneath a decent cover and some huge martial artists who aren't even given decent rolls. If you want to see a good funny martial arts movie check out: Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, or any other Stephen Chow film. This movie doesn't even compare to Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. I like stupid movies, but the movie still needs to be entertaining.

This movie supposed to be funny ??? it ain't even near to the definition of the word ! it is by far the worst comedy i've ever seen !! at first i thought that it can't be that bad, just that the start is just lame, and later on the movie will be funny,,,, but hey, my mistake...it even got worse !!

I couldn't even bare to watch it till the end, it got so boring, and stupid !!

If you like to sleep in front of the TV , then go out and buy or rent this movie, and you are guaranteed to have a goodnight sleep !

I guess they didn't know what to do with the money, so they made this, to annoy the movie fans, and to laugh at those who find this junk hilarious !

Going by the previous comment here I thought this movie would be comical exploration into the kung-fu world. What a mistake that was! The only laughs I got were at the expense of the acting and the script (if there even was a script, often it felt as though the entire movie was being ad-libbed by a first-year college movie class). Although there are numerous references to classic kung-fu movies, they don't come across as a tongue-in-cheek homage, but rather a pathetic attempt to legitimise the meaningless content. There are plenty of low brow jokes which only serve reinforce the weak script and poorly written characters, with nothing original or witty as a saving grace. A waste of time & money.

I really, really wanted to enjoy this movie but it just didn't seem to gel. A movie spoof is supposed to be funny, not make you sorry for the people appearing in it. Not to mention sorry for the people who financed it because you pray they can somehow make their money back and yet you know they probably won't. A movie lives and dies by it's script and for a comedy spoof this just wasn't very funny at all. And I agree with the 2 other people who said the "fart fight" featuring Lorenzo Lamas was the definite low point. Flatulence on film was funny when Mel Brooks did it in the classic "Blazing Saddles" but that was a long, long time ago. And how disappointing to see a film with the smoking hot Robin Shou and veteran Don "The Dragon" Wilson and neither one of them fights?? Just much too brief cameos for both, truly a shame. Might have helped things a bit here, at least there would have been some great fighting to make up for the lack of great comedy.