Spiritual Kung Fu (1978) ***/*****
This was once my favorite early era (1976-1982) Jackie Chan movie, does it still hold up? We'll see. But one of my favorite genre mashups are the Supernatural/(Insert genre) ones. Don't know why, but adding a dash of the supernatural to genres that don't usually have that element, will always get my attention. Action and Kung Fu movies especially. A character flaw I suppose. But anyway onto the movie.
A goofy student is taught a lost martial art style by five ghosts.
Whoah, talk about spooky. As I was going about getting the template prepared for this review, I paused the movie, and the very first picture I found was this one. Which is exactly where I paused the movie so I wouldn't get distracted.
Still enjoy this one nearly as much as when I first watched it, but the two concurrent plot lines really don't mesh well, and the main plot line should've been kept while excising the secondary plot line. It really feels like two separate movies that have melded together. The main plot is Jackie Chan being trained by the ghosts.
While the secondary plot is a standard revenge fueled grab for power by orchestrated by this guy in white and his father.
His story line really brings the movie to a screeching halt whenever it focuses on him. He's also the slowest of the fighters featured in the movie and doesn't really compliment Jackie Chan's more hyperkinetic style. The resulting final showdown between the two plods along till we get to the shocking reveal. It's not often that Jackie faces an opponent he simply can't create any chemistry with, but this dude just lacked any charisma and stands out as one of the most boring sparring partners Jackie's ever faced. Which is weird because James Tien is usually better than that
Which may have been an intentional character choice on the part of the filmmakers. But for whatever reason I failed to find him engaging in any way whatsoever. I strongly suspect I'm approaching his character the wrong way. As of right now, I really think he was the weakest part of the movie.
The humor in this is decidedly juvenile, and can best be summed up by two scenes. A ghostly fart in the face, and Jackie peeing all over the ghosts. I will admit the ghost fart in the face made me laugh. I don't bring these scenes up to disparage the movies humor, only to illuminate the level of humor we are dealing with.
Of course we do get see Jackie in full slapstick mode which is always fun, the physical humor is top notch.
All the ghostly training then leads to Jackie passing the test and becoming a Grandmaster in an excellent sequence that sees Jackie at the top of his game. Jackie has far more chemistry with the large group he has to defeat on his journey to Grandmaster status, than with the James Tien.
The movie should've cut the B story, consolidate the twist into the A plot and been far better off for it. B was almost entirely unnecessary, and the movie suffers for it.
That aside, once the void is dealt with, the real bad guy shows up and things pick up once again. We are firmly back into slapstick territory and both fighters are fantastic with the mix of comedy and action.
When I first saw this, I was appalled by the clown ghosts, at first anyway. I fully wanted ghostly Shaolin monks to be teaching Jackie Kung-Fu. But... as this was my first encounter with ghosts in Hong Kong cinema, I just figured they were steeped in the rich cultural lore of the country. So the design of the ghosts are a bit of a shock, at least initially.
But the movie did bring my favorite type of monk. THE BLIND ABBOTT! (Still no Costello, unfortunately)
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| Lee Hae-Ryong |
I dunno why, but that is just so cool to me.
I couldn't go without mentioning my boy Dean Shek, who is criminally underused in the movie, but he does have a few memorable scenes in the movie. Including one where he comes face to face with one of the ghosts. He adds so much fun anytime he's on the screen.
Definitely worth a watch, and one of the better Jackie Chan/Lo Wei collaborations. It just can't decide if it's comedy or drama. At times it feels like a Godfrey Ho frankensteined effort.
Cast
- Jackie Chan ... Yi Lang
- James Tin Chuen ... Lu Qing
- Wu Wensiu ... Miss Fong
- Li Tong-Chun
- Lee Kwan ... Monk
- Dean Shek Tin
- Kao Chiang
- Lee Hae-Ryong ... Blind abbott
- Lee Man-Tai ... Senior monk
- Wang Kuang-Yu ... Monk
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