Spiritual Kung Fu

Slightly better than Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, the first half of the movie is a good funny movie. The second half is barely comedic with super poor action happening quite frequently. Jackie's training with the ghosts is decent though. There's a great comedic bit with a giant pen and the movie does have a couple of really good scene transitions. Check this movie out for the comedy.

This movie was shot back to back with Dragon Fist, and the similarities shows. They both take place at Shaolin temple, and Jackie is a student. This one has more comedic flavor to it. Lo Wei directs this movie as well.

Book of Seven Fist has been stolen from Shaolin temple. Only Five Star fist can win over the Seven Fist, but this technique has been lost. Conveniently, the spirits of the Five Star travels to earth and shows Yi-Lang (Jackie Chan) where the lost book is located. They also give private lessons to Yu-Lang. Killing starts to happen around the temple with Seven Fist technique. It turns out that a man kept in the dungeon Wei-Wu is the culprit who stole the book, and doing the killing. He feels that his Seven Fist style is invincible. Yu-Lang volunteers to leave the temple to settle the score with Wei-Wu. But the real culprit turns out to be a surprising person, and more unexpected things happen with the spirits during the battle.

1978 must have been a good year for Jackie Chan, as he made slew of good movies including his early master piece the "Drunken Master". While this movie is no masterpiece, Jackie Chan looks so good in his role as the Shaolin student. The movie came out after the Dragon Fist, and the Drunken Master, and this movie almost looks like a cross between the two. There's lots of comedy, but Jackie's kung fu looks so sharp and stylish.

To be perfectly honest, I couldn't enjoy some of the comedic parts of this movie. Problem with Lo Wei's directing style is that he always portrays supporting cast as low class or no class idiots. He might feel that this is a necessary comedic touch to entertain the audience, but this in my opinion has kept the status of Hong Kong movie low for years. This became obvious when younger directors like Jackie Chan came along and started to direct movies with quality comical touch. Now Hong Kong is considered to produce top notch movies, second perhaps only to Hollywood.

The movie is better than average kung fu movie from the same era. It's a charming movie with good kung fu action mixed in.

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.

If you are like me, a Jackie Chan fanboy, then you will love this movie.

It has been sitting on my shelf for a while now and I have only chosen other movies to watch in my spare time due to the shockingly low rating it has received here.

What a fool I was. this movie is just as good as the likes of Snake and Crane or Shaolin Wooden Men and is only slightly less entertaining than the great Fearless Hyena.

Ignore the reviews that rate this film so low. They are obviously written by the small unfortunate portion of Jackie's fanbase that consider the Rush Hour trilogy as his biggest achievement.

If you consider yourself a true Jackie Chan fan, you will not be disappointed with this film.