Customer Reviews

Spiritual Kung Fu

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is one of my most memorable Jackie Chan movie which I saw it for the very first time when I was 12 years old, it was 1980 in Japan. Jackie Chan popularity was booming back then, and he made many TV show appearance in Japan. Now almost 25 years later in my life, I finally get to see this film again, here in the USA. The movie was better when I saw it as a child in the past. I suppose I have been spoiled by big money making movie productions such as by Hollywood. I wanted more, and better quality in sound and picture. I wanted it to be a wide screen. I wanted this and that comparing to American movies. But after all, this is a "Classic Chinese movie with a low budget film." The MAGIC of this movie is not so much in quality, but in ACTION, and UNDERSTANDING of culture, APPRECIATION of the art, and the one must have a good sense of IMAGINATION skill. LOT OF Kung-Fu movies require such senses to fully appreciate the movie. After all it is a movie. The movie such as TUXEDO, or THE ONE by Jet Li are so ruined by putting too much money into it in the production, becoming very much like Hollywood movies. Fake, and superficial. Sad to see. This movie will always remain as one of my Jackie Chan's prime time BEST classics.

Sure, the panning and the transfer of this movie may not of been so great, but I enjoyed the movie anyway. I certainly don't get these movies for Hollywood style or quality. The 5 clown like ghost threw me off, since I would not of expected to see that in a Kung Fu movie. I liked some of the close ups as it allows you to see how to do the strike better. The Five Animal Style is classic Shao-Lin and this movie gives you a good idea of how it looks and how to execute it. Corny, yet funny, I give this move 3 stars. And learning Shao-Lin Kung Fu myself, I find Spiritual Kung Fu educational.

I love this film!!! Excellent!!! Maybe some of you want to watch a kung fu film to see nothing but pointless fight scenes, but I for one like to see some other things in my kung fu flicks. Styles for one, check. A little kung fu humor, check. A little more developed plot then just the regular ol' "you killed my family member now i must get revenge", check. This film is extremely well done and I recommend it to anyone who considers themselves to be a Jackie Chan fan. This is a must have!!!

I said what the heck and rented this movie because I like kung fu movies. well This movie had a good story line like most old school kung fu movies. And great fight scenes. Also I like that jackie chan emphasized less comedy in this movie and foucuses on kung fu unlike now. The only draw back is that its old, poor quality , and the special effects are ridiculous or it would have gotten 5 stars.

I guess I'm giving up on old Jackie Chan movies after purchasing this and Snake and Crane Arts.

We'd expected something like Drunken Master and are disappointed. Most of the fighters aren't very good or interesting. There's none of the stylistic display you see in Drunken Master. These people do just enough Fu to give Jackie a chance to show off.

The snake like style Jackie uses also gets old after a while. Why doesn't someone just break those fingers. It's not really convincingly dangerous.

It's fun so it's good for three stars but my quest to find another Drunken Master grade of Kung Fu fighting will end with this purchase.

SPIRITUAL KUNG FU (1978) is a hilarious, cheap kung fu film except for one thing: it is vintage early Jackie Chan, among his first great hits. Screened over four years before Jet Li's debut in SHAOLIN TEMPLE, SPIRITUAL KUNG FU took us into the hidden, mysterious world of the Shao Lin Monastery and the lay pupils who studied there. It is a fun, humorous adventure and I say this: it is excellent family viewing. It is a permanent lifelong favorite of mine, ever since it was new.

Probably inspired by Bruce Lee's original idea which became the TV series "Kung Fu", Yi Lang (Jackie Chan) is a bumbling Shao Lin gopher and 'wannabe' student. He doesn't seem to have his act together and is harshly judged by everyone - seeing as he's a sort of lazy troublemaker. The abbot of the Temple seems to be a very holy priest and an incident spurs him to lock himself into one of the underground meditation caves.

Meanwhile Yi Lang wrestles with a part of the Shao Lin library that is haunted. Extremely goofy fx and dancing skeletons highlights this section of the story - but there is more. The long-lost book of the True Five Animals of Shao Lin martial art ("The Five-fist") is discovered by Yi Lang, and the 'spirits' of the five original animals - the tiger, the snake, the crane, the dragon and the panther - emerge from the book where they have been hiding. They teach the system to him so he can beat the "Seven-fist" system.

This is important because the abbot is an evil, vengeance-mad martial artist who only joined Shao Lin in order to kill every priest there. He knows Seven-fist, but has been hunting for decades to find the Five-star instruction manual that Yi Lang has already found.

Yi Lang is trained by the spirits and beats the living crap out of the phony abbot. The beauty of this is the quality demonstrated all in the actors - it is certainly not in the cinematography, the sets, the costumes or even the storyline though that is pretty good as a Shao Lin story. Yet it is, like SHAOLIN WOODEN DUMMIES, a powerful cry to audiences, about what was happening in real life at Shao Lin. There is a hidden message of morality in this morality play.

SPIRITUAL KUNG FU has a Western name that is so embarrassing that you do not need to hear it from me. Besides, this is readily available, in several editions, here on Amazon under its proper title ....

WARNING: this particular DVD edition has no formatting whatsoever. Therefore the effect is much like zooming in on a film too closely and being forced to watch it that way. I actually missed many of my favorite scenes because of this sloppy, unforgivable DVD transfer.

I watch these films in the Chinese - but this copy magically skips into English at odd moments. After the halfway mark, it bounces to-and-fro between English and Cantonese. There is no Mandarin available, but then it would do little good. AVOID THIS EDITION IF YOU CAN. I don't know if others are better; just avoid it. If you can't see the thing, it is better not to waste your money on this disastrous DVD edition.

Otherwise bottom line: MUST-SEE whether plain old Chinese film fan, kung fu fan, Jackie Chan fan, Shao Lin fan or martial arts fan. If you do not own or know this film, you are none of the above!

If you are a Jackie chan fan or if you just are on a mission to see every kung fu movie ever (those people do exist) then you have to see this film. It features Jackie Chan as a ..... THE PLOT DOESN'T MATTER!SEE THE FILM!!

I wouldn't recommend this movie much unless you are a hard core Jackie devotee. There are some really good fight scenes, but the story is so incredibly DUMB that it can be hard to sit through at times. This one's definitely worth renting, though. I would rank it somewhere between Fearless Hyena (which I hated) and Snake in Eagle's Shadow (which I thought was pretty good).

this is about what I expected from a definite B- movie of Jackie's early career, so the nonsensical plot didn't bother me. however, this is a full screen DVD, and it is very obvious when in many scenes the characters with dialogue are cut out of frame. so the transfer and image quality leaves a lot to be desired.

This movie showcases the finest points of Jackie Chan's ... kicking, almost ninjistic abilities. For the first half hour, you WILL be confused and wondering what the hell those ghosts are supposed to be. But from tehn on, the martial artistry and action packed kung fu never ends! The styles of the snake, dragon, tiger, crane and leopard combine to form an awesome fighting force capable of an obscene degree of ... whooping destruction. This movie is the coolest thing ever... so cool I want to head butt my dog so hard that we both pass out, and then kick my mom right in the face! Watch it NOW!