Buddha's Palm

Young Chien-Fei Lung is a terrible fighter, until he stumbles upon Ku Han-Hun, the Flaming Cloud Devil, who takes him under his wing and teaches him the eight movements of Buddha's Palm, one of the most powerful martial arts in the world. But Ku is blind and so Chien-Fei sets out to find the one item that can cure him; in addition, he's looking for Ku's rivals from 20 years earlier, including Pi-Ku, Sun Pi-Ling, Heavenly Foot and Liu Piao-Piao, all of whom have secret weapons and skills of their own, not to mention convoluted relationships and shifting allegiances. Can Chien-Fei use his powers for good, or will he be destroyed by all these martial arts masters?

I can't actually give a synopsis of this film, it's so completely wacky and ludicrous! It may help to know it's from the famous Shaw Brothers, whose martial arts films were so over the top that the only way to view them is to just forget about logic and go with the flow. This film is no exception - it's a wild mix of martial arts, "Star Wars" style light sabers, maniacal laughter and very strange special effects. Often one can tell if a character is a bad guy by his maniacal laugh, but most of the male characters in this film have maniacal laughs at one point or another, so that's no help. A lovely thing in these movies is that there are female martial arts masters as well as male, although for some reason the women are only allowed to learn four of the eight movements of Buddha's Palm, a restriction that is never explained. But there you have it, there's no point to expecting explanations (or logic or to some degree even continuity) with the Shaw Brothers, just go with the flow and enjoy it on its own very silly merits.

This is maybe one of the fastest paced, most incoherent movies I've ever seen. Every five minutes feels like you walked into the middle of a different movie. There are SO many characters and SO much plot all compressed into some very small spaces that at some point you just have to smile and nod, like, yeah sure, the dragon's egg, it cures any illness and only appears once every century, and it'll appear tomorrow, of course.

Eventually threads of a plot do gradually emerge, but it's always slathered in this hyperactive editing style. The dub doesn't help matters either, with stilted dialog and strange performances. You'd almost be forgiven thinking this movie was supposed to be a comedy with how weird and over the top it is.

The sort of movie where 90 minutes feels like an eternity because everything is constantly happening all the time. It's honestly kind of exhausting. A fun, strange ride I'll probably only ever take once.

I remember I was a little boy whose even cannot read the subtitle or understand what the actors spoke when the first time I watched ‘Buddha's Palm'. But the impression I have that this is really an entertaining flick and I love it instantaneous. It fulfilled my child fantasy. The second view to me was when I'm a junior high school student in a matinee show. Once again I stunned by it charm, and I can appreciate it with more mature value. Now, thanks for the nice effort from Celestial Pictures, I can collect this as my own private home collection.

Buddha's Palm combines fantasy and Wu Xia blatantly and with it many colorful characters and novel plot it became one of the classic. Taylor Wong, as the director successfully made it with old school ambience and new wave influence altogether. See it for your self if you claim you're self as a Wu Xia fans. Maybe, the fantasy will disturb you if you seek for the plain Wu Xia plot, but in my opinion the fantasy element doesn't spoil the whole film's structure, instead make it more glorious. The year that the film made (1982) doesn't effected the up-to-date feel for a fantasy or Wu Xia film. Yes, you still can enjoy this even you now the F/X are dated. Buddha's Palm also featuring many Shaw Brothers beloved actors like Derek Yee, Kara Hui, Alex Man, Goo Goon Chung and many others. Their performance is over the top.

The only thing bothers me that Buddha's Palm got many character but doesn't build them well. It seem that the fast pace have make them to appears instantly. But, except that, I think this is a superb film that should be appreciated not only for the Wu Xia or fantasy fans.

8/10

Towards the end of the Shaw film studio's days, they decided to pull out the stops and make their films as wild as possible. Full of gaudy lighting and crazy animated effects. Mainstay director Yuen Chor didn't do so well at this time as his films became studies in excess instead of entertainment. The Shaw's brought in some new directors and so Taylor Wong is here directing his second feature.

The plot, if it can be called that, revolves around a jilted lover who falls from a cliff while being beaten by his girlfriend's husband to be. He is caught by Dameng, a sort of flying Dog Dragon, and brought to the Old Devil, a master of the Buddha Palm. Of course he learns the Palm and gets involved with the Old Devil's past. The Old Devil has a number of enemies.

Where other Shaw films in this vein are rather stilted and old fashioned, this film is full of energy and inventive camera work. There are a number of camera moves that didn't become popular until the late 1990's. The lighting is frequently garish but done with some artistic restraint. The fight choreography is absolutely bizarre but it's well filmed and works because of it. Other films like this usually have lots of confusing movement that is only effective because it passes so quickly. Everything is very fake but that shouldn't dissuade you from enjoying it. There are two narrators who make comments from time to time. The narrator's comments make it clear that the film-makers didn't take any of this seriously.

Probably one of the best films in this genre. Recommended.

To be honest, this is most certainly not a good movie. But its is absolutley awsome and i love it! All the way over the top ridiculousness, glorious and cheesy beyond imagination! Its filled with more sfx (oh my! what sfx!) than actual fighting, but there is some of that as well.

Its well worth to take the time if you are intressted, id say its about a 50/50 chance you love or hate it. If youre into classic kung fu, the odds that you like it are slightly better, same if you like silly 80's horror movies ( this is completly diffrent, but yeah, trust me on this one ^^)