I found this epic in CEX for 50p but I do like these bargains as they do yield some amazing B movies, movies that are so bad they are good. and this one is actually ok.
Starting out strangely with a few guys getting violently abducted, one is even clothed lined and stolen as he tries to get help for his pregnant wife, despite her square cushioned shaped baby, he and a few others are chucked into a gold mine and expected to work (without training), the story unfolds quickly after this and it goes something like this.. some dude needs to pay up some cash but his only source of cash is his gold mine (woe be unto him), he’s worked out that if he steals some people to work in his mine he’ll be able to smelt enough gold in time but his prisoners keep trying to escape.. damned peasants. The overseers are total bastards and are constantly rounding people up and beating them. There is one respite as one of the team leaders and his daugher (with long pigtails and a wispy fringe.. no cliches here) do their best to make life a little easier, and secretly teaches a few of them kung fu as they are determined to escape.
It’s a pretty bad movie but it has some character and strangely really bad tracking!? I guess it had to be recorded from a VHS, that feature is actually cool, lots of modern films try to look like they are recorded VHS and fail to do it this good.
The fight scenes are so very slow, but there are so many of them.. After the initial story kicks off, and everyone is trained up it’s just ass kicking until the end. Some of the practicing scenes are in slow mo and quite tasty but other than that it’s not brilliant, not like Riki Oh (1991) and rings few bells of Shao Lin zhen ying xiong – Shaolin Temple (1979) or any film where people are surreptitiously trained through punishment or menial duties.
One guy did all the voice overs (there was no subtitle option) and as you’d expect it doesn’t have a much more depth to really talk about, as bad kung fu movies go it’s not terrible but not highly recommended if you take things too seriously. I do like the film and it does have a bit of re watchability if only for me to do my own dubbing…
Rating 4/10
L Crappy but entertaining Kung Fu Films, Fave Kung Fu Films, Selected Shaolin Films
R Shao Lin zhen ying xiong – Shaolin Temple (1979)
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