Spiritual Kung Fu

I picked this film up on DVD for a couple of bucks at Wal-Mart, so I wasn't really expecting a great film. Spiritual Kung Fu met these expectations. Bad dubbing, bad special effects, and the goofy clown/mime/rag doll/ghosts detracted from the film.

What made the film bearable was the good kung fu and the casting of James Tien as the bad guy. There's also a twist at the end that is only hinted at once during the film, so it comes as quite a surprise.

If you want a great film to make you think, watch something else. If you want a goofy chopsocky Jackie Chan movie to waste a couple of hours, (and have no deep-seated fear of clowns) check Spiritual Kung Fu out.

• Lex

this one is a weird, weird flick. funny at times, exciting at times, scary at times(not a lot though), but mostly just weird. it invloves jackie learning a lost style of kung fu from some red haired, tutu wearing ghosts. at some time in the movie, he even takes a leak (urinates, to make myself clearer) on them! like i said, very weird.

I watched this movie a few month back. It's plot is pretty forgettable, same for the fighting scenes. For the most part the movie is cliché-ridden and steadily mediocre, but there is one, big exception.Around the half of the first hour of the movie there is this scene that will stay with me forever. As you might have figured out from the synopsis, the ghosts that haunt Jackie are the big part of this movie. Before the said scene they appear a few times, later they teach him some moves and thank to that Jackie wins the final fight. But the first encounter between the ghost and Jackie is one of the funniest moments in all of Jackie Chan's films. The poor special effects, the ridiculous script (Jackie starts peeing at the ghost), the whole insanity of seeing a fake skeleton bounce on the screen because the guy used X-Ray Vision scroll and looked at his friend is more then enough reason to watch this movie. I haven't laughed much at the movie for a long time, and I'm happy that I saw this low-budget martial arts extravaganza.

In conclusion if you have the opportunity to watch this movie, please do. The first 1/3 is pretty boring, and for the rest of the movie you wish that the craziness that occurred around 30 minutes in repeats itself, but sadly that doesn't happen. But this 10 minute segment of Jackie playing around with ghost is more than enough for you to rent this movie.

Okay, so it's basically a crappy chopsocky movie. There are perhaps hints of Jackie Chan's unparalleled skill and comic brilliance, but not a whole lot more. The action is pretty run of the mill for the period. However, the dubbing in this film makes it pretty entertaining at points, my favorite part being the interaction between Jackie and the the young woman, who is the first girl his character has ever seen. After flirting with her, he tries to show off some of the 5-style fist he's been learning from the white-faced ballerina ghosts (that's a whole other story, but also pretty amusing). Jackie goes into a stance, and the following dialogue ensues: Girl(coy): "What's that?" Jackie(smug): "Oh, you wouldn't know that. That's the famous crane style." Girl(bitchy): "Really? Well, you look like a teapot. Pouring tea!" Jackie(indignant): "You insult my style?! I'll show you!"

They fight, and she defeats him. After consulting with the ballerina ghosts, Jackie waits for a rematch:

Jackie(sly): "I've been waiting for you all morning." Girl(chipper): "Why? To get beat?" Jackie(confident): "I won't get beat. But you will."

He then proceeds to mop the floor with her; poking her in the head with his crane beak/fist, he goads, "A teapot? Is that right?!"

If you found that at all funny, then maybe it's worth checking out. For some reason I thought it was amusing. But you'd better be a pretty serious Jackie Chan fan, 'cause there isn't much else there.

A sacred manual of the Seven Fist technique is stolen from the legendary Shaolin temple, and the only style good enough to conquer it, the Five Fists, has long since vanished. Thankfully a meteor hits the temple walls, unearthing the spirits of the Five Fists style, who summarily teach their deadly animal kung fu to lazy student Jackie Chan, so that maybe he can help when the Seven Fist thief strike again. What makes this Lo Wei adventure so endearing is the shoddy special effects – with Star Wars released the year before, Spiritual Kung Fu plainly outlines how behind the times HK was in their effects department (the meteor is a sparkler on a piece of string), and the flame-haired, hula-skirt wearing superimposed ghosts do retain a certain charm despite the cheapness.