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Evil Luk Xin (James Tien) wants to take over leadership of the martial
arts world, and to this end he steals the "Seven Fist Book" from
the Shaolin temple, a book about Kung Fu so powerful that it isn't even
taught in the temple anymore. There is only one way to defeat Seven Fist
Kung Fu, and that's Five Fist Kung Fu, but the manual teaching that has
been gone missing long ago. Anyways, part of the Shaolin Temple is
haunted by ghosts, and the only one who dares to enter this part is
student and simpleton Yi Lang, a guy who's normally nothing but trouble.
However, he somehow makes friends with the ghosts and finds out that they
are actually the guardians of the "Five Fist Book", and they
lead him to its hiding place and train him in Five Fist Kung Fu. The
leader of the Wu Tang Clan comes to a visit to Shaolin Temple but is
murdered, with one of the monks serving as tailor-made suspect. The
deceased's daughter Ms Fong (Mo Man-Sau) wants to have revenge for her
father, but another monk convinces her that the accused is not to blame
and helps them both to get away - which only makes the accused look more
guilty. Yi Lang agrees to track them down, but on his way runs into Luk
Xin, soon sees through his game and challenges him to a fight - but is
narrowly defeated. Luk Xin comes to Shaolin temple to claim leadership
of the martial arts world - but Yi Lang challenges him to a rematch - and
kills him. Upon which one of the monks loses its cool and starts fighting
Yi Lang like a madman. Thing is, that man was Luk Xin's father and
co-conspirator who wanted to make his son leader of the martial arts
world, something that he could never become himself. Problem is, the monk
is pretty good much better than Yi Lang, and he soon has him almost
defeated - when the ghosts of the book come to the rescue, and with their
help, Yi Lang defeats and kills his opponent. A Kung Fu comedy
with supernatural touches that's riddled with problems: Basically, the
film is not at all funny, there is not a single amusing moment about it.
Furthermore the fight scenes are all very traditionally brought to screen
and a far cry from the action extravaganzas Jackie Chan later became
famous for. As for Chan himself: He proves himself to be a fine martial
artist, but the onscreen persona he later became identified with hadn't
yet come to the fore. The worst thing about the whole film though are the
ghosts: Androgynous beings painted white and dressed in cheap white
overalls equipped with even cheaper red wigs - they are not scary, they
are not funny, they just look weird, but not weird in a good way. In
all, pretty much a waste of time and money.
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