The Master of Kung-Fu

THE STORY: Kung Fu movies can do something no other genre can really get away with. They don't have to make sense. They don't even have to be good. Its pretty hard to make a kung fu movie that really sucks, because the stupider they are the better they are to watch. Kung Fu also must give people a certain amount of invulnerability because it seems no matter how many times you get hit no bones get broken, there's very little bleeding and you recover quickly. Despite the fact that some of the blows in these movies would kill or cripple a normal human being.

I'm not good with names in these movies but I'll do my best. Master Ting (or Tang...whatever) has a kung fu school in the US. But he's a compulsive gambler and he's got a big debt to a mob boss guy. In order to pay it off he gets his old kung Fu teacher, Master Wan, to fly in from Hong Kong. Master Wan is an old man, but he's the best kung fu man on the planet.

Tang dupes Master Wan into fighting rival kung fu schools. The other schools think that Wan will be easy to beat, but are shocked when Wan defeats his opponents. Tang rakes in money off of the bets and pays his debts. But he keeps fooling Master Wan into fighting and keeping the money. A young man, Bill, who works at the school gets wind of this. After a match where the opponents cheat and injure Master Wan, Bill tells him the truth. (The opponents throw tacks on the ground and Master Wan steps on them hurting his feet.)

Angered, Master Wan leaves Tang to his own devices. Tang tries to apologize but Wan wants no part of him anymore. Master Wan moves in with Bill and teaches him Kung Fu. This is when the movie turns into a Chinese Odd Couple. There's about an hour of Wan and Bill going to discos and Bill setting Master Wan up with Mary, a fat American lady that is his neighbor.

But a kung Fu movie is no good without fights. Bill and Master Wan are attacked at the hotel where they work by a random group of karate thugs. There's no real reason given for the attack. Of course no one can beat Master Wan and Bill manages to beat his opponent with a combination of disco dancing and kung fu. Yep, its as silly as it sounds. But is kind of cool too. Funny how only kung fu movies can pull something like that off.

Bill learns that another rival school plans on attacking Master Tang's school. He asks Master Wan to forgive Tang and help, but Wan refuses. He wants to go back to Hong Kong. Bill argues with him, but then goes off himself to help Tang. Tang's students are putting up a good fight but even with Tang fighting with them they are losing. Bill arrives and begins to kick some ass. then Master Wan arrives, having had a change of heart. Together he and Bill beat up about ten guys with blows that definitely would cripple regular guys for life. Master Wan tells Tang he's still kind of pissed at him, but he came to help because Bill taught him that its right to help a fellow human being in distress. (I thought a kung fu master would know that anyway)

As the movie closes we see Bill and his girlfriend Laura taking master wan to the airport. Unfortunately, Mary is there also and she wants to go to Hong Kong with Master Wan. Oh, those goofy guys! Master Wan is married! (that was established a few times in this movie) Too bad the movie ends. I'd like to see how Wan's wife reacts to him bringing a fat white lady back to Hong Kong with him!

During this movie its also established that Master Wan doesn't speak English, but everything in the movie is said in English. It kind of makes it weird when Wan says something to people and they don't understand him because all we hear is English!

Best Lines: "You're not Chinese that's why you don't understand what I'm saying."-  Master Wan is frustrated when an American woman doesn't understand him.

1.) Master Tang tells his students the first thing he taught them was patience, then he smacks the guys around in anger. I guess patience means "kick someone's ass" in Chinese.

2.) The dubbing in this movie is fantastically bad! However that's a good thing! It only adds to the funniness of this movie!

3.) Apparently Kung Fu training is somewhat like Jedi training. It involves standing on your hands a lot and even jumping up and down is slow motion. I suppose you need the Force for that.

4.) Just to make this movie a little weirder, there's a scene where Master Wan dances with a fat woman in a disco to a disco version of "Popeye the Sailor Man". My wife walked in during that scene and her jaw dropped. This scene quickly turns into a Three Stooges-like fiasco involving disco dancing, kung fu fighting and bottles being cracked over heads.

5.) For the luvva Mike! This movie is padded more than a Sealy-posture-pedic mattress! Is there a [unwrite]ing point to this flick? There hasn't been a real Kung Fu fight in thirty minutes. (discounting the disco scene, which was "comedy")

6.) So let me get this straight-even in the United States Kung Fu schools vie for superiority by attacking each other in vicious combat at random intervals. Obviously it must break the Kung Fu Kode to call the police when a group of karate-kickin' thugs bust in on you and start to whoop on your students.

NUDITY AND SEX:  none

HUH? : Its alluded that Master wan does not speak English, but everything he says or is said to him is in English and there are no subtitles.

Whenever Master Wan is seen fighting his face is obscured. Methinks a younger man is doubled in those spots.

Who are these guys that attack Bill and Master Wan at the hotel? Why did they attack? just a random group of young guys going kung Fu wildin'?

THE TALLY: You'll either really hate this movie or you'll like it. If you like kung fu movies of the saturday-afternoon-on-a-local-TV- station kind, rent it. If you're not into that you're not going to dig it. But the Inferno digs it!