Tian zhan

So they say this movie was banned in several countries. So as I watched I tried to figure out why.. Well this plot is rather weak in that the normal "master" gets killed and the revenge thing happens.. Yet the twist this time is that this guy seems un-stoppable because of this so called sword that he has.. The fight scenes are rather weak and laffable compared to other films of this type.. What sets this one apart from a lot of the others is some of the so called Special Effects in the fights.. one example is when "Super Chan" seems to have a vertical jump of say 50 or 60 feet easily. He fights 100's of men in what seems like some sort of thing to make the movie a lot longer than it should be. You have a small love interest in the film with sad lookin backgrounds. I can on recommend this movie to anyone lookin for something different that they can laff at and poke fun at. AS you can't take it all serious. I think the reason is was banned as some of the fight scenes are pretty violent and bloody with some of these men being killed in really strange ways. I have already added this film to my collection as one to keep.. At least it is not as bad as Kung Pow.. If that is telling you anything..

Saw this on VHS years ago (from the Wu Tang Collection) and laughed until I cried watching it. Rewatching in 2025 and it's still just as hilarious. Epic in scope and very silly but played straight. The editing is incoherent which makes for outrageous slapstick moments. Act 2 is one extended fight scene that keeps going and going and going. Having seen a ton of Kung Fu flicks, nothing has ever topped this one for sheer enjoyment. Scrappy low-budget Taiwanese Wuxia that is pure entertainment. Unintentionally funnier than any of the kung fu spoofs like Kung Pow. Should be way more famous than it is.

Lighten up, if you found this page, or this film, then you know what to expect from Invincible Super Chan and films like it. No one wanders into a video store expecting Citizen Kane II from this kind of film.

But if you expect outrageously silly kung-fu action along with nonsense dialogue and awful dubbing, than this is a movie for you. This is the kind of movie that you rent on a night with nothing to do, drink some beers, and laugh yourself silly as you watch ISC (as you will learn to refer to him) fly over mountains and generally whoop the bad dudes.

Fun film

The packaging says this was banned in Asia for its violence; however, what we have here in the American dubbed release appears to be a censoring re-edit, because I've seen worse violence in films, and the editing in action sequences here seem intended to pare away pro-longed blood-letting.

Not that the uncensored edits are any much better; still, I continue to hope that one day I will be able to see this film in all its original pristine gore.

How bad is this film, just as a film? well, the hero and his wife are standing at the grave of the hero's teacher at sunset - at least, the painted backdrop behind them appears to be that of the setting sun - how do we know it's a painted backdrop? because when the hero walks in front of it, the spotlight casts his shadow ON the sun! They just don't make suns like they used to, I guess.

Actually, one has to get into a kind of weird "Mack Sennett meets Tsui Hark" kind of groove to enjoy this film. It's definitely a silent movie that somehow got made in the sound-film era; and it's definitely a wild wire-works ride through the realm of magical sword-fighting in ancient China - you can even see the wires attached to mannequins flying about pretending to be sword-fighters.

Oh, well, I might as well admit that I just have a soft spot for cinematic moments when people are killed by having rocks shoved down their throats.

Eight stars for entertainment value, but only for real connoisseurs.

Many will condemn this movie for its poor quality, bad editing and sporadic plot; however, those who do cannot understand the beauty of a truly bad movie. This is a truly bad movie. So bad that I have seen it a half dozen times.

Somebody killed Chan's teacher. Chan wants revenge. The only thing that stands between himself and that noble goal is about five hundred people, variously armed. After he gets his revenge, he still has to defeat a man brandishing a slinky.

Nothing is good about the movie: Chan is a non-dynamic character whose fighting ability is less Jackie Chan than it is Jackie Onasis. It looks as if, at a certain point in the movie, the editor simply gives up and goes home, leaving editing in the capable hands of pure random chance. The women are as ugly as mud fences that have been painstakingly sculpted to look like really ugly Chinese women. The villains are gay, frail or just plain stupid.

But, like a cryptogram, you realize that there must be something hidden in this movie...something deep...the key to the meaning of life, perhaps.

I let my twelve year old watch it for the first time this weekend. Between the two of us and several watchings, we should get it figured out...