Shaolin Master

It starts with six guys beat up a martial arts master. The kid finds him and heals him up. The kid learns martial arts and grows up at the same time. If you have watched a few of these movies you know the rest.

My well- traveled copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV in size and resolution similar to an old VHS tape. There are Greek subtitles. The movie is dubbed into English. I found that hard to figure because it would have been filmed in English to start. There also seems to be more than one source. The video quality and overall look abruptly changes at least twice.

The dialog in this movie is all explanations. One thing not clearly explained was good guys versus bad guys. The story line goes everywhere which was typical of making it up as you go instead of a script.

The fights in this movie were just weird. Often the moves were hesitant or just didn't fall into place. In a typical fight, the two fighters both seemed to be doing a preset series of moves and happened to get into each other's way. A good range of weapons was used and props also used as weapons. There were some extended fight sequences too but the more consecutive moves looked rigid or out of synch.

I have a problem with a 1976 release date for this movie. It strongly resembles 1978 Drunken Master and 1980 The Young Master, too strongly to have been original years earlier. I also suspect a Steady cam was used in places and that wasn't invented yet.

Overall I rate this movie above average for the year and genre for two reasons. First reason is the fights and this is quantity over quality. There are plenty of fights. The other reason is the movie is just a bit weird and different.