IMDb RATING
5.8/10
2.7K
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A goofy student is taught a lost martial art style by five ghosts.A goofy student is taught a lost martial art style by five ghosts.A goofy student is taught a lost martial art style by five ghosts.
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This movie (which really should have "Spiritual Kung Fu" listed as an alternate title) may be mostly for those who specifically like kung fu movies, but if you're one of those then this is a classic. While it forebodes the comedic action of later Chan movies, it is actually much more serious, and Jackie's part may be the biggest part, but it is almost matched by several other characters, so the emphasis doesn't lie so squarely on the lead character as it usually does in Chan's movies.
If you're a kung fu movie fan, don't listen to the negative comments posted here. This is one cool movie with lots of cool weirdness, and definitely some very cool fights. At one point, Jackie, who's still considered a novice, has to fight the 18 top students, and he licks every one of them in a long and impressive fight scene. This movie is definitely worth your while.
My rating: 8 out of 10.
If you're a kung fu movie fan, don't listen to the negative comments posted here. This is one cool movie with lots of cool weirdness, and definitely some very cool fights. At one point, Jackie, who's still considered a novice, has to fight the 18 top students, and he licks every one of them in a long and impressive fight scene. This movie is definitely worth your while.
My rating: 8 out of 10.
A sacred manual of the Seven Fist technique is stolen from the legendary Shaolin temple, and the only style good enough to conquer it, the Five Fists, has long since vanished. Thankfully a meteor hits the temple walls, unearthing the spirits of the Five Fists style, who summarily teach their deadly animal kung fu to lazy student Jackie Chan, so that maybe he can help when the Seven Fist thief strike again. What makes this Lo Wei adventure so endearing is the shoddy special effects with Star Wars released the year before, Spiritual Kung Fu plainly outlines how behind the times HK was in their effects department (the meteor is a sparkler on a piece of string), and the flame-haired, hula-skirt wearing superimposed ghosts do retain a certain charm despite the cheapness.
I watched this movie a few month back. It's plot is pretty forgettable, same for the fighting scenes. For the most part the movie is cliché-ridden and steadily mediocre, but there is one, big exception.Around the half of the first hour of the movie there is this scene that will stay with me forever. As you might have figured out from the synopsis, the ghosts that haunt Jackie are the big part of this movie. Before the said scene they appear a few times, later they teach him some moves and thank to that Jackie wins the final fight. But the first encounter between the ghost and Jackie is one of the funniest moments in all of Jackie Chan's films. The poor special effects, the ridiculous script (Jackie starts peeing at the ghost), the whole insanity of seeing a fake skeleton bounce on the screen because the guy used X-Ray Vision scroll and looked at his friend is more then enough reason to watch this movie. I haven't laughed much at the movie for a long time, and I'm happy that I saw this low-budget martial arts extravaganza.
In conclusion if you have the opportunity to watch this movie, please do. The first 1/3 is pretty boring, and for the rest of the movie you wish that the craziness that occurred around 30 minutes in repeats itself, but sadly that doesn't happen. But this 10 minute segment of Jackie playing around with ghost is more than enough for you to rent this movie.
In conclusion if you have the opportunity to watch this movie, please do. The first 1/3 is pretty boring, and for the rest of the movie you wish that the craziness that occurred around 30 minutes in repeats itself, but sadly that doesn't happen. But this 10 minute segment of Jackie playing around with ghost is more than enough for you to rent this movie.
If you are like me, a Jackie Chan fanboy, then you will love this movie.
It has been sitting on my shelf for a while now and I have only chosen other movies to watch in my spare time due to the shockingly low rating it has received here.
What a fool I was. this movie is just as good as the likes of Snake and Crane or Shaolin Wooden Men and is only slightly less entertaining than the great Fearless Hyena.
Ignore the reviews that rate this film so low. They are obviously written by the small unfortunate portion of Jackie's fanbase that consider the Rush Hour trilogy as his biggest achievement.
If you consider yourself a true Jackie Chan fan, you will not be disappointed with this film.
It has been sitting on my shelf for a while now and I have only chosen other movies to watch in my spare time due to the shockingly low rating it has received here.
What a fool I was. this movie is just as good as the likes of Snake and Crane or Shaolin Wooden Men and is only slightly less entertaining than the great Fearless Hyena.
Ignore the reviews that rate this film so low. They are obviously written by the small unfortunate portion of Jackie's fanbase that consider the Rush Hour trilogy as his biggest achievement.
If you consider yourself a true Jackie Chan fan, you will not be disappointed with this film.
Lo Wei, the director of this rubbishy kung-fu comedy, as usual never let Jackie Chan shine properly in this slow-paced story about some ghosts that teach
Chan Five Fists' kung-fu, for he is in search of a stolen book containing the means of learning Seven Fists kung-fu.
Dreadful dubbing, awful special effects (mind you, this was Hong Kong with very limited budgets - something that HK fans are undoubtedly used to), not all that funny, and just plain dull. Not even the intricate fight scenes are worth looking at, and even these are a bit tiresome. Costumes - what were those ghosts
wearing?!
And of course there's the diabolical dubbing. Distributors should learn that the original language makes it a lot easier to appreciate even a bad movie, but it still wouldn't save this...
Chan Five Fists' kung-fu, for he is in search of a stolen book containing the means of learning Seven Fists kung-fu.
Dreadful dubbing, awful special effects (mind you, this was Hong Kong with very limited budgets - something that HK fans are undoubtedly used to), not all that funny, and just plain dull. Not even the intricate fight scenes are worth looking at, and even these are a bit tiresome. Costumes - what were those ghosts
wearing?!
And of course there's the diabolical dubbing. Distributors should learn that the original language makes it a lot easier to appreciate even a bad movie, but it still wouldn't save this...
Did you know
- TriviaAlong with Le Poing de la vengeance (1979), this movie was filmed in early 1978. As Wei Lo's studio went bankrupt, they shelved both movies due to cost-cutting measures and Chan was loaned out to Seasonal Films for a two-picture deal. While there, he made Le Chinois se déchaîne (1978) and Le Maître chinois (1978) with Yuen Woo-Ping. The success of these two movies at the domestic box-office prompted Lo to give belated releases to this movie and Le Poing de la vengeance (1979).
- GoofsWhen one of the ghosts tease Yi-Lang with the candle it is clear that there is a pane of glass between Yi-Lang and the candle because there is a clear reflection of that candle visible on-screen.
- Alternate versionsIn at least the Mandarin, French and English export versions, Ya Long is knocked out with a chop to the neck. In the Cantonese version, he is knocked out with poison.
- ConnectionsEdited into Le Cri de la hyène (1983)
- SoundtracksBeat
(theme of the Masters of the Five Fists)
Performed by Kitaro
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