Shaolin contre Mantis

Excellent mix of comedy, fighting, and bad dubbing! Seriously though, any fan of old school kung fu will enjoy this. Enjoy it for the many fights throughout the movie (including a person being killed mere moments into the films beginning!) And for the excellent quality of said fights! No fake fighting to be had here thats for sure. And best of all, there is a bonus commentary track by Ric Meyers of kung fu insider magazine. (who gave the movie the title Plan nine from outer china) In my opinion thats the best part, as I learned stuff about the genre that I never knew before. You also can most likely find this movie cheap. So go out and find a copy for yourself! Look for the Taiseng release as it is the one I own (and has the audio commentary) on DVD.

Gordon works out under a waterfall. A man with one hand kills a guy. Gordon kidnaps a girl for revenge on her father. The backstory is Gordon's family was killed, they thought they drowned him but now he is back and he knows kung fu.

I always start my review with a summary of the opening action. This is to make sure we are talking about the same movie. Many of these movies have alternate titles and many titles are similar or have nothing to do with anything going on in the movie.

I am having a problem with the title of this movie at IMDb. It is currently listed as "The 36th Chamber:The Final Encounter", but the picture on the DVD is labeled "Shaolin Drunken Monk" which is the correct title. Other alternate titles are incorrect. I am using HKMDB as an alternate source and they are usually more accurate in regards to these movies.

My copy is the Ocean Shores VHS release English dubbed and converted to a computer video file. It is not the A-team of voice actors but they did a good job.

The story line makes a good start but the second flashback destroys the pace. One flashback can be okay but two, especially when so extended, never works. My only other complaint is the drunken boxing that has nothing to do with the fighting until the final three minutes.

The fights are outstanding and make up for any other minuses. Overall I think the movie still barely amounts to a knick less than average for the year and genre.

I remember watching this film when it was released in India in the early eighties. I was barely a teen then. I remember this film being the best martial arts film i ever saw. It was entertaining, had great fights, amazing training techniques, etc. But please remember, all my memories about this film (and the rating I have given it) are based on watching it as a 11 or 12 years old. I have no idea how I would react if I were to watch it now. Maybe find it funny at times. Or even silly, maybe. I don't know. I remember watching a movie called Five Deadly Venoms even earlier than 1982, and when I rented it recently, I found it to be garbage :)

This was a wonderfully entertaining movie. In most traditional respects, it was a complete disaster. The editing (including the sound editing) is the worst I have ever seen/heard in a movie. Whoever chose the cats who dubbed this in English was apparently drunk as well - most of them sounded clinically depressed (or like a bunch of morons). But the whimsical roles and performances of Gordon Liu and the drunken master more than compensated for the monumental failures. This remains one of my all-time favorite gongfu movies.

If you're a fan of crazy kung-fu then this is a must-see. Just the idea alone of learning kung-fu from a drunken master is enough to make it a hit. Don't look for an ocsar winner here just plain funniness. There was tons of fight scenes and freaked out moves...and really isn't that all we want in a martial arts film?