The 36 Crazy Fists (1977)

Better than a sleeping pill if you have insomnia

The first ten minutes of 36 Crazy Fists showcased Jackie Chan working with the actors in the movie. To be clear, despite many posters and VHS/DVD covers, he was not in the movie. He was the martial arts director and due to contractual issues was not allowed to act in it. He dodged a bullet.

Wong Tai Kwong is befriended by two Shaolin monks when they rescue him during a fight. Turns out his father had been murdered by the gang for not paying protection money. The two monks talk their sifu into training him so that he can have his revenge. Most of the time Wong does chores and only when a passing drunk fights with him does he learn any kung fu. Eventually, he has to fight two thugs from the gang in duels and finally the Big Bad at the end. That's it. There was a lot of "comedic" subterfuge thrown in but the story was thin even by kung fu standards.

Aside from Ku Feng and maybe Chiang Cheng, everyone else was about as interesting as wallpaper paste. Tony Leung Siu Hung would go on to act in Ip Man. He also became a respected martial arts director, including working on Ip Man. But this was not Ip Man. This was not even a bad Jackie Chan movie. The acting was abysmal and the story was as slow and uninteresting as the fights.

But @Butterfly this was a movie with Jackie Chan as the martial arts director so the fights must have been great-right? Wrong. The fights were s-l-o-w. It was either kung fu posing or a bad kung fu dance off. The fights used many of the same poses over and over occasionally throwing in a back flip or two. The funniest bit in the whole movie was when they sped up Ku Feng having a meltdown and it made me wish I could do the same thing. Or that they would speed the whole movie up and let it be a Chipmunk Martial Arts Movie Special. At least if they'd sped the action up, the fights would have been normal speed. People missed their marks and one stuntman literally rolled under a fighter for him to jump over. The fights were painfully bad.

If the fights, story, and acting weren't bad enough, at one point they sent a prostitute into the monk's bedroom to blackmail him into training Wong. For way too long her bare breasts filled the entire screen as she shook them, and shook them, and shook them. I truly cannot think of one thing to recommend this movie. Unless you are on a mission to see anything Jackie was involved in or fancy watching the bouncing boobies, I'd avoid this disaster.

9/15/23

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