The Battle Wizard

This is one of the crazy ones, along the lines of Buddha's Palm or Holy Flame of the Martial World, though not as fun or inventive. Danny Lee plays a scholar who is uninterested in kung fu, who pursues the "Red Python" which can grant great power. His task is complicated by his philandering father, the cute Lin Chen-chi and her magical snakes, and angry Tanny Tien-ni and her dagger-shooting leg bone.

The movie is filled wacky costumes, fake monsters, goofy visual effects, and kung fu "laser" beams. As short as it is, it still gets a bit bogged down in dialogue and exposition. Still, there's enough craziness along the way to hold you until the mind-blowing ending , which features Danny Lee fighting a kung fu gorilla, and a man on retractable metal chicken legs who fires flames out of his mouth. Worth watching, at least for the ending.

A bookish young man named Tuan Yu (Danny Lee) believes that he doesn't need to learn to fight; his father, the brother of the king, disagrees and Tuan Yu decides to walk about in the world to see if he does need that skill. He soon meets Chung Ling-erh (Chen-Chi Lin), a snake-loving girl, who promises to teach him kung fu if he will teach her to read. In the meantime, Miss Mu (Ni Tien) is a fighter without compare, who always wears a mask and vows to either kill or marry any man who sees her face. The three soon find themselves facing all sorts of danger, not least from the husband of a woman who was having an affair with Tuan Yu's father. They will need to find a red snake, a deadly green toad and a lot of courage to make it through....

This is one of the Shaw Brothers films that makes almost no sense if you try to think about it logically, but is a lot of fun to look at anyway. There's all sorts of mayhem, including a gorilla (or rather, a man in a gorilla suit), bullet-like objects being shot from some characters' fingers, a guy who periodically belches out fire and oh, so much more! This film was rushed out just four or five months after the original "Star Wars" film, which it definitely seeks to emulate in terms of what were then state-of-the-art special effects; and it looks just as silly to modern eyes today as that original "Star Wars" does (I mean that affectionately). Tons of fun!

THE BATTLE WIZARD is a wacky, effects-fuelled martial world romp from Shaw that once again features Danny Lee in a kind of superhero-style role. This one came out just four months after STAR WARS and may have been influenced by that film's reliance on then-cutting edge FX technology. It's a short, fast-paced little adventure, with a ton of action and bizarre touches to make it enjoyable; Chiang Tao's half-human terminator and the fighting gorilla are highlights here. The guy with metal legs is also a hoot, and Tien Ni has a great role as a conflicted femme fatale.

Prior viewer's descriptions of the action offered here have been duly attempted and I won't dispute anything I've read. I will just say, you REALLY have to be in the mood for this.

I've been watching Kung Fu movies on TV since the 1970's, and I've seen some pretty wild stuff. But this one dumps a whole kitchen sink of action and effects on you. A lot of it makes no sense and a lot of it looks terrible, but hey, like I said, you have to be in the mood. And as to those cheapy laser beams, just look at American, high-end effects in 1977. Star Wars came out the same year, and the laser effects there were not hugely better than this stuff. Production values as a whole were worlds apart, but the laser beams themselves? Not a big difference.

Thank the Red Dragon, or the deity of your choice, for the El Rey Network. It has "Flying, Five Finger, One Armed, Eight Pole, Shaolin, Exploding Death Touch Thursdays". Wonders like this one are now brought to my TV each week. Not every movie can be a classic like Enter the Dragon, but El Rey shows them all with no prejudice. Actually, thank Robert Rodriguez, for putting his reputation and cash on the line to start that channel. I don't know another network that would show us these treasures.

In a contest for the strangest Kung Fu movie, I'm not sure which one would win, but this movie, and Hong hai er (The Fantastic Magic Baby) are definitely two of the top contenders.

Definitely along the lines of "Anything Goes" HK cinema, Battle Wizard starts crazy and remains that way to the very end. Convoluted story, strange characters, garish special effects and a snappy pace keep this film entertaining, that is if you go for this sort of thing.

This is the sort of movie that is immune to most commentary just by the obvious disregard the film makers have for normal movie making. Either you watch this sort of film or you don't. The only comment I can make is that whoever edited this film should have been sent back to the butcher shop to resume slicing tripe. It's some of the worst editing I ever have seen in a Shaw production.

Fun for an afternoon with friends.