The Buddhist Fist
by Woo-ping Yuen
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Lung Chan, Mei Sheng Fan, Sai Aan Dai, Shun-Yee Yuen, Siu Ming TsuiDirector: Woo-ping Yuen
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Cantonese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Mandarin Chinese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-04-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Tai Seng
Movie Reviews of The Buddhist Fist
Movie Review: Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
Another quintessential bad movie sub genre is the chopsaki kung-fu flick genre. I've seen a lot of chopsaki flicks. But I don't think I have ever seen one as genuinely bad as The Buddhist Fist. It was one of those movies that I felt, at least for a time, was the worst I have ever seen. For sure it is the worst chopsaki flick I have ever seen. Every other movie of this kind has at least some kind of redeeming quality... Good one liners, good martial arts, good screenplay, SOMETHING. The Buddhist Fist is so astoundingly bad that there is simply nothing purposefully good about it. Instead, the movie is of worth on terms of hilarity only. The plot is incoherent and almost completely nonexistent, but you get the feeling if it did exist to a bigger extent, it would be severely really stupid. It has something to do with two brothers who were both trained in martial arts, or something, that end up being enemies in the end. One of the movies best moments involves the lead actor killing his brother in the end, after which his master simply pats his shoulder and says, rather quaintly I might add after absolutely nothing is revealed or any higher ground is reached in the plot, "Now you understand." I don't feel bad about spoiling this, because it will make your eyes widen when you watch it even if you know it's coming. Embarrassingly horrible moments like this are not few. The plot progresses with little to no rhyme or reason. The director is Yuen Wo Ping, who did the choreography for the Matrix. By those standards, I was expecting something at least half decent when I first bought this, but in fact, the choreography is absolutely horrible with obviously rhythmic and calculated, and completely stupid, "martial arts." One of the catch lines was that this is also a humorous movie. That's true. But only because of how much it embarrasses itself. The original dialog probably wasn't even close to funny in it's native tongue, let alone when dubbed poorly. The camera quality is deplorable on numerous occasions, the characters aren't likable... You know what, I'm going to stop there. This is an astoundingly horrible movie that only reveals more faults every time you watch it. Essential martial arts film.
Summary of The Buddhist Fist
An early classic by the legendary Yuen Wo Ping, director of "Iron Monkey" and action director for the Hollywood hit "The Matrix," "The Buddhist Fist" is the story of two orphans who are raised separately by Shaolin monks and trained in the lethal art of the Buddhist Fist. Fate reunites them after a series of attacks at the monastery, and a surprise revelation leads to a duel to the death between the two brothers. Packed with furious fight scenes expertly choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, "The Buddhist Fist" is good old-fashioned kung fu fighting at its very best!Director and martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping is best known to American audiences for transforming Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves into kick-ass kung fu cyber-warriors in The Matrix, but this Hong Kong pro has been turning out some of the best fight scenes in Asian cinema since 1971. He directed Jackie Chan in his breakthrough hit Drunken Master and helped turn martial arts champion Jet Li into a screen legend by choreographing Once Upon a Time in China and Fist of Legend. By contrast his 1980 The Buddhist Fist is achingly old-fashioned, a familiar revenge film about a poor but stalwart small-town orphan who returns home from the big city to find a tangled mystery involving oodles of assassins and a criminal godfather known only as "Big Small Feet." The plot is secondary to the spectacle, a tight series of precise strike-and-pose sequences that were all the rage in the 1970s, slick and practiced but stiff compared to the fluid 1980s style. Stars Yuen Shunyi and Tsui Siu Ming have neither the charisma nor the grace of Jackie or Jet, but they do pull out some furious moves in flare-ups both grim and goofy, including a deadly dinner date that brings new meaning to the term food fight and an impressive climactic duel to the death. Chunks of the score were shamelessly ripped right out of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. --Sean Axmaker
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