Les 36 Signes de la mort

I had heard good things about The 36 Deadly Styles, but what I got was a big disappointment. The story is hardly coherent, and it actually seems like at least two different movies were conflated into one. The fight of the two masters who had waited ten years to settle their score (over a lost book of the 36 deadly styles, which is the sole reference in the entire movie to its actual title) had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story.

The first hour and seven or eight minutes were very, very dull, and made all the worse by a really terrible bad guy. There were a couple of decent fights (mostly involving the girl), but nothing to get worked up about. Then, suddenly, in the last 20 minutes, we get a lot of great training and fight sequences. The final battle is passable, but not great. The end is too abrupt.

I rate most of the movie a "3" out of 10, but because of the last 20 minutes, I'll generously award it an overall rating of 5.

After watching one of the greatest martial arts movies ever, 7 Grandmasters, it was very anti-climactic to see the same director, Joseph Kuo, make such a royal mess out of The 36 Deadly Styles. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that most of the movie was done by some hack, and only a few scenes were actually Joseph Kuo's work.

Only bad with this one is 70's movie quality, and some scene breaks likely done to cut out burnt celluloid film.

No pun intended and I have to admit, I did not recognize Bolo Yeung at first! He is wearing quite the ridiculous wig - and he is not the only one wearing one! His partner in crime does too - and they are so painfully obvious. One can also only imagine how uncomfortable they had to be in ... I guess you could say it adds to the humor the movie carries (no pun intended).

There is some Jackie Chan style (or at least inspired) comedy and action involved here - at least it feels that way. And why not copy something that has been succesful before? Exactly - now if you have a thing for kung fu/martial arts movies of the 70s and 80s you could do a lot worse. Some fine fighting, some fine stunts ... even if it seems that in some scenes the major bad guy is replaced by a double.

We also have the end fight that could have been staged better (smoke and all that) and a scene involving a snake that is quite hard to swallow (no pun intended) ... just some pointers for you to get around to.

It starts with "who are these people and why are they fighting?" That is just the beginning of the confusion. Before the fight is resolved cut to a leader addressing his men that he is upset his enemy is on the loose and his men are not his match anyway. Cut again to a white eyebrows guy challenges a man for revenge and defeats him. Cut again to a guy with a moustache preparing a snake potion that he needs to drink right now. There are some flashbacks to that first fight, then moustache guy goes outside and confronts a monk who has been watching him. Now the tone of the movie switches to comedy.

When I write these reviews I start with a description of the opening scenes. This is to make sure we know what movie I am reviewing. Many of these movies have multiple and similar titles. I have read a few reviews here that do not describe the movie I watched of the same title. Ideally I stop my description when the story concept becomes apparent but that is not happening here. As other reviewers have already noted the story is muddled to the point it seems there are two movies going on.

The action is good start to finish. The overwhelming flaw of this movie was its failure to hold my attention. It's not like I was bored and wanted to fast forward but I was easily distracted by any little thing even during the final fight. Despite the good fights there was just nothing here to draw and maintain audience interest

My copy is a digital file with better then VHS resolution and seems wider also. It is English dubbed and the voices are competent and do not distract.

I rate this movie as average for the year and genre based on the fights pulling it up a notch against everything else pulling it down a notch. This is only for hard core fans and you will probably want to watch a martial arts movie as soon as this one is over – it is just not filling. As the old commercial for beer would go "Tastes average, less filling".

THE 36 DEADLY STYLES is a cheap kung fu film made by Hong Kong producers and shot in Taiwan. It features one of those forgettable story lines about an upstanding young fighter (the bland Nick Cheung) who must train in the martial arts in order to avenge the death of his father at the hands of some nefarious bad guys. The staging is very ordinary and occasionally quite inept, and the title refers to a hidden book of martial arts techniques and a fight between two old masters which has little connection to the rest of the story.

In fact none of this makes particular sense, and for the first hour it's quite the bore. The viewer is treated to the usual round of bland and cheesy comedy and bad dubbing, with some typical fighting thrown into the mix. Things only start kicking off towards the end, when the tag team of Bolo Yeung and Hwang Jang Lee as the master villains show up to kick some backside. Both are bewigged, quite badly; Bolo in particular looks like he's wearing a mop on his head. Still, they enliven the action-packed ending, which is a bit short but still the best part of an overall lacklustre production.