Customer Reviews

Shaolin Challenges Ninja

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you know kung fu films then you must know Gordon Liu, and this is one of my favorite movies of his. Gordon Liu is an awesome martial artist. In this film he demonstrate many martial arts techniques such a drunken boxing and other kung fu styles. In this movie Gordon Liu is forced to marry a Japanese woman who is skilled and proud of her Japenese fighting skills and customs. This couple eventually quarrells over whos style is better. The Japenese wife's masters come from Japan to teach Gordon Liu a lesson. A beautiful display of spear, sword, staff, Judo, karete, ninjitsu, and other fighting styles are displayed. The movie is english dubbed, and the option of clear subtitles is available. The movie is digitally restored so it is fairly clear when compared to other old school kung fu films. Simply, buy this movie if you enjoy good kung fu movies, a must have for all fans!!

Apples vs. oranges, Chevy vs. Ford, Yankees vs. Red Sox, vanilla vs. chocolate... all great debates to be sure, but they pale in comparison to the best debate of them all, Chinese Martial Arts vs. Japanese Martial Arts! This Lau Kar-Leung (who also appears as a drunken master!) film, also known by the much better title, "Heroes of the East," delivers this battle in fantastic fashion with tons of style and charm to spare. The plot has Gordon Liu in an arranged marriage to Japanese actress Yuko Mizuno and instantly their cultures and beliefs clash, most importantly when it comes to just who has the best fighting techniques the world over. In typical Kar-Leung film fashion the movie has a light playful tone, however; unlike some of his other attempts it's never corny and obnoxious and Gordon and Yuko in particular have fun with the situations while still keeping a serious tone about everything. The Japanese masters that are brought in to challenge Gordon are all great and bring personality and flavor with the small amount of screen time each is given (by actual Japanese actors). When these duels occur we get everything you could ever hope for including Kung Fu vs. Karate, Long Sword vs. Kitana, Butterfly Knives vs. Sais, 3 Section Staff vs. Nunchuku (in the closest we'll ever get to seeing Liu take on Bruce Lee... and this guy is an obvious clone), and more! One knock I do have with the movie is that Chinese master Liu tends to pawn the Japanese masters in exciting but fairly one-sided duels. Still, this is a Chinese film (if it was Japanese I'm sure things would be quite the opposite) and the Japanese masters are all treated respectfully even in defeat. This is a top 10 martial arts movie for myself and many other fans of Kung Fu cinema so if you haven't seen this yet then do yourself a favor and check it out ASAP! As far as the DVD by bargain-bin bootleg company Red Sun goes, it looks unbelievably good in a crisp, clean widescreen presentation and comes with 2 language tracks (original and English dub... the dub has a pretty solid hissing behind it) and can be bought for next to nothing. That being said I advise buying this only if you have never seen it and until Image or another respectable company rereleases it... then crush this bootleg copy with a rock (means of destruction completely up to you. The rock is just a sugestion LOL!).

This is an illegal bootleg DVD, check out the offical release "Heroes of the East" the movie is excellent but we need to support the offical releases of the Shaw Brothers classics not these cheap bootlegs.

This flick definately reflects Gordon Liu in a positive light since "The Master Killer". I thought his flick was a great old school story,,,very entertaining. This flick was directed by the great Leung Kar Yan, one of his best production,,no question. Definately a must see,,really great movie!!

All the reviews listed here say it very well. This movie portrays the mythos between Japanese and Chinese fighting very well. It compares and contrasts them through the discovery between a newly wed husband and wife. It is playful and humorous in spots, without being the least corny. It is one of my favorite Shaw releases. If you are trying to get your girlfriend to watch old school kung fu, start with this one. If you have a girl that likes kung fu, she's a keeper. If you are a single girl that likes kung fu..... how YOU doin'? Anywho, the Japanese wife who is skilled in martial arts and playful with it early in the movie will appeal to the female gender.

The Red Sun release is a little sketchy. As stated in another review, this dvd has original language with subtitles, even though my dvd cover says english language with no subtitles. Color reproduction and sharpness are fairly good. Also, my dvd wouldn't work in one player, but did in another. For the money, and to have original language, I am most pleased though.

What's refreshing about this movie is that its sense of humor transcends culture and geography. I can deal with the fact that kung fu films are just an extension of the Chinese Opera, but often the humor doesn't translate. Then again, I find most modern American comedies anything but funny. And let's look at American martial arts flicks. No, I'm not gonna do that. Blecchh!

Gordon Liu is arranged to be married to a Japanese woman, which he ain't thrilled about until he sees how pretty she is. So he goes through with it and all is well until they start debating on the superiority of Chinese or Japanese styles. Eventually they spar and Gordo wins. She goes back to Japan and he issues her a challenge to try and get her to return. Unfortunately the letter is intercepted by some of her superiors thinking he is challenging them and insulting their martial arts.

A group of Japanese fighters soon show up on Gordon's door looking for a rumble. He has to fight one a day until he is defeated or takes them all out. Not an easy task, even for an expert.

There are some great and inventive fights in this movie. And each one is different from the last as he has to use a different style and/or weapon for each of his opponents.

A beautiful, restored DVD only adds to the excitement of owning this movie. Colorful in picture, humor, and style. This is quite a bit different than most Shaw Brothers movies I've seen and is recommended.

1978. aka: Heroes of the East; Challenge of the Ninja

I feel like every review starts out the same for me, but here I go.

If you have not heard of red sun and do not have an all-region dvd player, then red sun is the best company going for classic kung fu. If you look up red sun under the amazon search engine, you will see I have plenty of reviews for this distribitor, that's because I have bought most of these and have managed to find some of the best movies in the history of cinema. And the LETTERBOXED widesceening job is so perfect I would be ahppy if this was the only dvd I had, ever.

First off, you will be sure that this is not a shaw's movie right away by the music. It sounds like authentic japanese, and overall provides an awesome score. It is really nice to get away from that stock music. And with origianl language, this goes both ways. The japanese are well worth hearing their voices, and there are a lot of japanese.

The movie has an odd start, no fancy MA display for the credits. it goes right to the story. Gordon Liu's family have set up a marriage for him long ago. But he doesn't really like this. So his friend(who you will certainly recogzine if you have seen any fu) comes in and tells him that the japanese girl has arrived. He goes on to describe her top and her bottom. Gordon gets all excited and runs out to meet her. But she comes in and lives in gordon's family's house and has absolutely no respect. Now gordon doesn't handle this the best way and since he is obviouusly better at the MA's, he beats her at everything. So this leads her to keep on breaking things and starting fights with him, to the point that she just completely leaves and goes home to japan. But when gordon sends a letter saying how far superior chinese is to japanese martial arts, her masters get pretty mad.

So all the japanese masters come over to challenge gordon. He sees his wife and rejoices but then sees like 8 dudes and one of them is like a giant. Now the second half of this thing begins. I still can't decide if I like the first or second half better. It is truly one of the best in the genre first half, but then the second half rivals any fu movie ever and manages to top most of them. The woman playing gordon's wife plays it perfectly. The first battle is superb, japanese against chinese sword, and more importantly, 2 techniques against eachother. The second the director comes up with an excuse to show that he is also a true drunken master, not just the yuen's and jackie. He plays the same drunk as most, and gordon has to learn his technique. This happens in too short amount of time, but works for the movie. And norman chu as another one of gordon's friend is great. No martial arts from him though. The weapons scenes are wonderful as they always match up chi and jap weapons. There is a spear scene, a 3 section staff against a 2 section and a sword, sai's against knives, and a match against a monster of a man, which I still think gordon cheated no matter what way they explain it. And the final one is prbably the best, true ninja scene(movie wise at least). So simon yuen has a good appearence hear as gordon's teacher and he keeps figuring out ways to beat all the japanese master that have come to challenge him.

But the main drawing point this movie is the real japanese actors. I am sure they are not real actors, but they worked just fine. The guy with the sai's may have no been japanese. And the master of all these master doesn's appear japanese but he doesn't fight, so that's cool. And Kuratu gets the well deserving lead role among them.

SO THIS RED SUN VERSION HAS 2 LANGUAGE TRACKS!!!!!! LETTERBOXED, CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURE!!!!!!!!!!! AND 5.1 BOOMING SOUND.

Now, what more could you ask for.

This martial arts classic is one of my favorite alltime movies. The casting was great, the action is superb and the skills are real. Get this movie, you wont be sorry.

This movie is the "BOMB".

For me, brings back memories of the early 80's, Sunday mornings they would play Kung Fu Movies.

This is a classic.

Great entertainment.

This movie has good dialogue and an excellent plot, and as part of that plot has an organized competition a la Karate Kid or Bloodsport which is as cool as that one from that movie which I wish I could remember where guys from all countries come together to compete and then the one guy from India comes strutting in playing the recorder type thing before he declares that he is going to kick a$$ all around, and besides all of that it has great kung fu. So you can judge my tastes, I also like Shaolin Temple Against Lama, Iron Monkey, Wheels on Meals, and Fist of Legend. I have seen a lot of kung fu movies, and this movie is among the best, upper ninety five percentile, of all kung fu movies. Maybe it's not Citizen Kane, but the director understood that the viewer wants to see action and not BS. Two bucks at the thrift store.