Le Grand Maître de kung-fu

SHAOLIN MONK (1977, also titled KILLER PRIEST in one VHS edition) has at its core an unusual conflict between a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk. Interestingly, the Taoist is the bad guy and has come to a Chinese town to exploit the townsfolk for reasons we don't learn until the final stage of the movie. The Buddhist monk, Tamo, has come from India to spread Buddhism and meets resistance from the local populace, or so we learn from a detailed bit of narration in the film's opening. Tamo seeks out Chi Yun, a young doctor-in-training working for his doctor father, and decides (for unexplained reasons) to make him his pupil and get him to Shaolin Temple as a monk. The young man's girlfriend, Yen Chi, eager to hold on to her doctor fiancé and not lose him to monkdom, puts up fierce opposition to the idea.

Eventually the Taoist and his minions go too far and the young doctor and his girlfriend go into hiding with the monk to learn his 18 Tamo techniques so they can confront the Taoist on an equal footing, leading to a nice set of extended battles at the end, including one between two great kung fu stars, Chen Sing and Phillip Ko.

Chen Sing was one of the most dependable kung fu heavies in a long career in these movies. Only on rare occasions did he play a heroic role and he was always very good when he did (see also THOU SHALL NOT KILL...BUT ONCE, aka FEROCIOUS MONK FROM SHAOLIN, and BRUCE AND SHAOLIN KUNG FU). In this film he plays the Buddhist monk and provides a solid presence at the heart of the film. Wen Chiang Long, who plays Chi Yun, was a familiar face in kung fu films but not often in lead roles. The third lead is kung fu diva Chia Ling (aka Judy Lee), who plays Yen Chi. Fans of this beautiful actress (and ferocious fighter) will be pleased to see that she looks absolutely gorgeous here and has a big part and plenty of fights. (For more Chia Ling films reviewed on this site, see QUEEN BOXER, IMPERIAL SWORD, and REVENGE OF THE PATRIOTS.) Chuen Yuen, another familiar face, plays the Taoist and Phillip Ko--another dependable villain in these films--plays the Taoist's elusive master.

The film's a little slow in parts and the fights are not always as well-staged as we'd like them, but the characters are compelling, there's enough action to keep it going, and the plot offers enough unique twists to keep even the most jaded kung fu fans engaged. And how often did Chen Sing and Chia Ling get such good parts?

A Buddhist monk named Tamo (Chen Sing) travels from India in hopes of spreading the word but finds little success. Soon he sets his sights instead on one Chi-Yun (Wen Chiang Long), a popular young doctor in training in a small Chinese town, who Tamo insists is destined to become his pupil and a Shaolin monk. Chi-Yun's girlfriend Yin-Chi (played with great spirit and gusto by Chia Ling), quite the fighter in her own right, meanwhile protests this idea greatly determined not to lose her man. Soon Tamo, Chi-Yun and a reluctant Yen Chi must join forces to do battle with an evil Taoist priest (Chuen Yuen) who's managed to take over the town following a murderous game of revenge all thanks to his bizarre, mysterious master and trainer (played by Phillip Ko).

This one's best moments come towards the end as we see the powerful Chen Sing's Tamo, who displays extraordinary abilities including powers of levitation, telekinesis, the ability to vanish without a trace and the ability to keep one's balance on a reed as it floats across a stream do battle with the evil Taoist master played by Phillip Ko, who it seems has made his fist super strong after a prolonged process and who seems to move at exceptional speeds in combat. Also it's an highlight to see Tamo's newest student Chi-Yun in combat with the evil Taoist priest who previously disgraced Chi-Yun's doctor father by spreading a plague through the town. The rest is surprisingly bland and forgettable aside from the constant protests of Yen Chi against the idea of her man becoming a Shaolin monk and her attempts to ensure it does not happen. Also the evil Taoist priest livens things up with his twisted hijinks, an highlight being his stealing of all the towns women.

aka "Shaolin Tamo Buddhist Monk" aka "The Fighting of Shaolin Monk" (aka Killer Priest)... OK, lets stop there, i'll try to clear up the confusion. Like ckormos1 said in his review - "What movie are we really watching here?". It's not your fault ckormos1, this does lead to confusion. The box covers shown here of "Killer Priest" are for the movie "The Furious Monk from Shaolin" aka "Shaolin Vengeance" (1974), unfortunately ckormos1's review belongs there too and the other reviews are correct here.

Shaolin Monk (The Fighting of Shaolin Monk) 1976 has a video release by Wu Tang Collection called "Killah Priest" but also has a Xenon's Wu Tang "VHS title" Killer Priest. The Furious Monk from Shaolin (Shaolin Vengeance) 1974 has the Xenon Martial Masters "DVD title" Killer Priest, which is the one most commonly seen. I don't know why they didn't reference Killer Priest in The Furious Monk from Shaolin page ckormos1, which led you to place your review here. Oh, also, both movies have Chan Sing and Phillip Ko on the box covers (they're in both movies) which leads to more confusion.

The easiest way to tell the two apart is to look at the female star roles - Chia Ling is in this one (Shaolin Monk) and Joan Lin Feng-Chiao is in the other (The Furious Monk from Shaolin). Hope this helps someone.

There's not much I can add to this for a review because Brian Camp nailed it again. Good job Brian. I liked this movie, it was good.

This review is for the movie Furious Monk from Shaolin aka Shaolin Vengeance with a Hong Kong release date of 11/28/1974. It is also known as Killer Priest. When I type those titles into the IMDb search I end up here but the other reviews are clearly for different films. Perhaps the other reviewers can get back with more specifics so we can resolve this problem. (I'm certainly not criticizing their reviews, I'm just trying to get things in order.) The titles of these old kung fu movies are often problematic thanks to the VHS rental craze that began in the 1980's. The English languages titles are very often just made up with key words such as "shaolin" or "ninja" inserted to grab the eye of the rental customer and now trying to sort out the mess is difficult. The title Killer Priest was apparently tacked on to this 1974 movie when it was released for rental and so we have this mess. Here are the opening plot details to help differentiate this movie from the others. It begins with scenes of the Buddhist temple where a new monk is initiated while an upset young girl tries to get in to stop it but is blocked. Then we cut to a lumberyard where the great martial arts actor Chan Sing is framed for murder and flees to escape. He takes refuge at the Buddhist temple. The bad guys take over the lumber business but one employee tells Chan's girl that he knows he was framed. The girl's mom bumps into Chan as a monk and frames him again, this time for rape. After taking his unjust punishment for a while Chan decides to leave the temple and faces the usual gauntlet of monks. That should be enough to establish what movie this is without giving away too much and ruining the story. By the way I'm not even clear what the character name is for Chan and of course his Chinese name also has numerous translations and spellings just like the movie title problems. Now for the review. This movie actually has a darn good plot which is not required because the only people watching these movies nowadays are fans of the genre and we just want to see the fights. It's the simple revenge plot with a little bit of the guy learning kung fu plot thrown in. As far as the fights go Chan gets into a fight soon enough but he has no kung fu in the beginning so looses. In the temple there are minimal training sequences and they are all basic stuff. When Chan fights his way out of the temple it's really just one fight and he does not win but they let him go. This really sets up the remaining fights well. Chan is not an unstoppable force but a guy good at kung fu looking for an opening and trying to apply what he knows to defeat his opponent in each following fight. I'm rating this at 7.0 and it would have been higher had there been more fights or longer fights.