Customer Reviews

Invincible Shaolin

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Shaw Brothers, the company known for their many releases of Hong Kong films for many decades ran by producer Sir Run Run Shaw, knighted by the British government and founder of Shaw University in Hong Kong and even founded the HK-TVB TV network was a major power behind the company and his third brother Runme Shaw (who founded South Sea Film), the film company would become known as Shaw Brothers Studio and become the first studio to bring Hong Kong cinema with sound in 1934.

The Shaw Brothers have created over a thousand films and with several having been aired on US television and some being released on video, the 1978 film "Nan Shao Lin yu bei Shao Lin" (Invincible Shaolin) is directed by Chang Cheh (known for the film "Chinese Super Ninjas", "Five Venoms", The Brave Archer" and "The One-Armed Swordsman), the Shaw Brothers Studio's most well-known filmmaker.

The film is one of Chang Cheh's tales of Shaolin rivalries during the Qing Dynasty. The film revolves upon an evil warlord named General Pu (played by Lung Wei Wang) and his goal to rid of the Qing Empire's Shaolin Masters. So, he invites three well-known Shaolin martial artists to fight and become his instructors.

Su Fong (played by Chien Sun) is known for his whirlwind kick (one kick can kill a man), Pao Sen Tsao (Feng Lu) can kill with a punch using Chin Kan Palm and the youngest of the group Yang Chung Fei (played by Sheng Chiang) who has mastered the Butterfly Pole and another martial art to easily evade attacks and jump fluidly. The three are from the Shaolin martial artists from the North.

General Pu and his assistant have the three compete against three martial artists from the South. The Northern trio easily defeat the three from the South and are spared from any killing. But secretly General Pu comes to visit the losing team and with one hit to each person, kills them.

The three from the North are told that their battle has killed the three from the South and they are shocked. They feel they may have mistook their own power or perhaps they are being framed for the murders.

The Southern Shaolin School mourns the death of three of their students and another three are sent to fight the Northern trio. This time, two are killed in battle and one escapes to tell his teacher of their techniques and how they are not prepared to fight with them.

Wanting revenge, the teacher of the Southern Shaolin School gets three of his top students to learn Southern Shaolin counter attacks to fight the Northern trio. Ho Ying Wu (played by Phillip Kwong) trains to master the Fishtail Pole to counter Yang Chung Fei's Butterfly Pole attack. Chu (played by Meng Lo) trains to learn the Mantis to counter Pao Sen Tsao's Chin Kan Palm and Mai Fong (played by Pai Wei) learns Wing Chun to fight Su Fong's Whirlwind Kick.

Despite the Northern trio knowing something is amiss and aware that possibly the General or his assistant is responsible for the things that have taken place, the Southern Shaolin trio train their hardest to prepare for their fight to the death against the Northern trio.

VIDEO:

So far, each Shaw Brothers release that FUNimation Entertainment has looked quite solid. Thanks to Celestial Pictures going through major remastering and restoration for many of the Shaw Bros. films, "Invincible Shaolin" looks very good. I saw no major blemishes, the film doesn't look aged and for the most part, the fact that this film is over 30-years-old, the PQ for the film is pretty good on DVD.

AUDIO & SUBTITLES:

As for audio, the film is presented in English Dolby Digital stereo and Mandarin Mono. Personally, having endured these Shaw films with the terrible (yet humorous) English dubs back in the late '70s and early '80s, just watching it again with the English dub just didn't make sense anymore (unless you get a kick of how bad they were acted). So, watching it with the Mandarin mono track was my choice and preference.

I felt the English stereo soundtrack was OK but felt the Mandarin mono to be much better. For listening, I had my receiver set for stereo on all channels for a more immersive soundtrack. Some may be wondering why the film is presented in Mandarin when Hong Kong films are typically in Cantonese. The Shaw Brothers Studio had films split into Mandarin and Cantonese.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

"Invincible Shaolin" comes with no special features.

EXTRAS:

The "Invincible Shaolin" DVD comes with a slip cover.

JUDGMENT CALL:

When it comes to Shaw Bros. films, one of my favorite storylines is when they tend to show the good guys being manipulated by someone evil and then we are introduced to another set of good guys and thus we are watching a film where we end up watching people on the same side fighting to the death.

"Invincible Shaolin" is one of those films. For the first half, we are rooting for the Northern Shaolin trio as they are being manipulated by General Pu and then the film suddenly switches to the new Southern trio who constantly train themselves for months in order to counter the Northern Shaolin martial artists' attacks.

Needless to say, this film thrives on martial arts choreography. Showcasing offense and defense and your emotions are literally tied behind your back because you are rooting for both sides because they are the good guys but circumstances pit them against each other.

The fighting scenes are awesome and although there is some gory violence (ie. a person's ribs protruding out of his body after a fight or people getting impailed), it's not to the point where it's disgusting (bare in mind, this film was created in 1978, so special effects was not exactly that convincing back then for a Shaw Bros. film). Also, the innovative ways for the training of the Southern Shaolin students is pretty cool and it's quite interesting to see the three develop counterattacks against the Northern Shaolin techniques!

The film is literally a martial arts fight fest. There are romantic angles with the Northern trio finding love but the women don't play a major role in the film, their presence is merely setting up the plot that leads to the North vs. South in battle and more for comedy to breakaway during the training of the Southern martial arts students.

Continuing with the restoration of the Shaw Bros. films courtesy of Celestial, this latest FUNimation release looks very good for a film that is over 30-years-old and once again ,we do get the original Chinese Mandarin track and even the horrid original English dubbing that I'm sure many people still enjoy after all these years for these Shaw Bros. films.

Overall, if you are looking for a Shaw Bros. film that is straight-up mostly all action or dedicated to the training of martial arts, "Invincible Shaolin" is definitely recommended!

A masterpiece of the Venoms era-- matched (not surpassed!) only possibly by Masked Avengers for sheer exuberant heroism and villainy! This is the film that set the tone for so many others-- Evil-general-deceives-rival-kungfu-schools-into-wiping-one-another-out-type-stuff, and is replete with the lengthy, laughable training sequences that made the Venoms famous. You'll never eat scrambled eggs again! So what if it's about as believable as pro wrestling? You get to see bodybuilder/gymnasts somersaulting though Chinese gardens disembowelling one another with amazing weapons, all the while proclaiming their eternal camaraderie!!

Unlike later efforts, this one even features a moving camera, so unlike films such as Masked Avengers, actors aren't forced to stand in tableau looking sideways... they can actually walk around the set-- a bonus! And it's a beautiful, colourful, letterboxed print that appears to have been made from film, and not video. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Fans of 5 Deadly Venoms, Masked Avengers, Flag Of Iron,Kid With The Golden Arm, will without a doubt love this film. Without giving away the entire story a short synopsis would be, the Manchus pit North Shaolin against South Shaolin in bids to get them to fight one another, there is plenty of action, excellent training sequences, and a great story which is easy to follow. I have seen many of the Venom stars movies and I must say I actually enjoyed this one a little more than the others. I would definetly recommend this movie to be part of your collection.

The lighting is poor, the subtitles are lousy, the cropping results in words going off both sides of the screen, all of which still can't distract the viewer from the fact that the story is mindnumbing. Save your money. I wish someone had saved me mine.

My husband love this movie and had it on video cassette, i surprised him with the DVD. The movie arrived right on schedule, even arrived earlier than expected.

if you love these movies as I do. this is a must own. the sound is a little messed up in the beginning,but after that it's great!

Celestial pictures are doing the martial arts fans a great service by cleaning up alot of the old Shaw brothers classics. The picture is flawless and in my opinion nearly high definition. If you have seen 36 Chambers of Shaolin and/or Five Deadly Venoms, then this movie is a no brainer buy now. I would have liked to see a commentary on this with Rza schooling some hollywood shmuck like in the 36 Chambers commentary. Story is fast paced and focused on bringing the action to the screen right away. Shaw Shaolin again is Invincible!

First off, I almost didn't give this movie 5 stars because the print on the VHS is a little poor. That being said this is a great movie. Yes, there are movies out there that look slicker and probably have better fighting scenes and some even have crazier training sequences, but the kung fu is just part of the fun here. I'll spare everyone a plot synopsis since that's been done in prior reviews.

Basically what made this movie fun is that I liked each of the six main characters. They all have their own personalities that are distinct and pretty well developed given the limited screen time each gets (a rarity in films like these), and they're all generally likable despite their faults. In particular the rapport between the two "strong guys" and the interactions between the two light skill/pole experts is a lot of fun.

By the way, the one liners in this movie are classic: "I don't have to eat eggs!!"

Bottom line...get this movie!

This is definatly not a Chang Cheh film, and the Venoms are no where to be seen. Either the names have gotten mixed up, or there is more than one movie by this title. Don't order this particular copy if you are expecting a Venoms film! Maybe Amazon will get the real thing in soon.

If you were looking for the highly praised Chang Cheh directed film (aka Unbeatable Dragon), this can't be it! The director listed on the box is a different name altogether, unless it is some sort of translated name. My recollection, in fact, is that the "other" film was named "North Shaolin vs. South Shaolin." The production quality here is poor and choppy. In one sequence, in fact, the film frame is offset vertically where you see a thin strip at the bottom of the screen representing the very "top" of the film frame (how sloppy is that!). The fighting throughout is mundane. The final lengthy fight is reasonably entertaining, but it comes after 85 minutes of torture. The fact that this was a subtitled film, with cramped truncated subtitles, and not a dubbed film made whatever plot existed impossible to follow.