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Sick Product of a Sick System

Don't Believe the Hype

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

THE WAYS OF KUNG FU is a simple story starring former Shaw Brothers actor Chi Kuan-Chun as a young novice at the Shaolin Temple who gets kicked out when he falls foul of some evil monks. Kuan-Chun then roams the countryside before he falls in with an old master, played by an unrecognisable Beardy. Subsequent scenes involve plenty of training and encounters with the big bad who must be defeated at all costs.This is very much a typical effort with an emphasis on action scenes and routine comedy. It's very much an ordinary film lifted by the presence of the familiar faces in the cast. Kuan-Chun is a very skilled performer although he doesn't get much of a chance to shine here given that he plays a complete novice until near the end. Beardy is also underutilised although fellow kung fu star Meng Fei makes a welcome appearance.The bad guy uses a metal ring to attack his opponents in some fun moments littered with randomness. The comedy is distinctly lowbrow but works quite effectively, especially the set-piece centred around a public loo which takes toilet humour to the next level. This isn't the kind of film which is going to set the world on fire but it does its job adequately enough.

Chi Kuan-Chun is a temple worker who is an easy target to be pushed around. It escalates when Cliff Ching Ching comes to the temple and pushes everyone around. Up until now all monks in these movies were good guys and the only bad monks were traitors. Also good guys would come to the temple to escape wrongful persecution. In this twist our evil monk is a bad guy using the temple as a place to escape lawful persecution. He is done up with face make up that seems to have been too much trouble to fully apply every day. Chi Kuan-Chun is sent away by his temple teacher for his own safety. He ends up with Leung Kar- Yan's kung fu family. At first he has no interest in learning martial arts but then he has an epiphany in the marketplace thanks to Wu Ma and Pang San the noodle maker. The training sequence became a staple of martial arts movies in 1978. I have been watching every martial arts movie ever made in chronological order. The first training sequence was in 1972 with Prodigal Boxer and Mang Fei. It was a poor attempt and is the first by definition only. Oddly enough, Mang Fei again, came back in 1977 with "Secret of the Shaolin Poles" for the second and much better training sequence. I'll get back to you and let you know the best of all training sequences when I complete my mission. So far this is the fourth and best but it won't hold up. Another unique thing about this movie is the sequence with the noodle maker. There is a strong message here promoting exercise, in any form you enjoy doing, to achieve good health and the primary purpose of kung fu is good health, not fighting as it should only be used in self- defense. Those two things plus the overall good fights account for my high ranking of this movie. The fights were not just stand alone good but went the extra step and were choreographed to fit the characters and the motives for fighting. Somebody please explain to me the pay toilet sequence. You pay to buy a plank to squat over a water hole to have a bowel movement? Is this historically accurate? There was also a similar sequence in a Shaw Brothers movie. Personally behind a tree has worked for me outdoors.

Firstly the original trailer on my Vengeance DVD calls this 'Temple of Death' but the video itself is definitely called The Ways of Kung Fu. Not mentioned by IMDb is Meng Fui and there are some cameos by the likes of Wa Mu. Who the rest of the cast is is not mentioned.This film starts off very slow and Chi Kwan Chun's character is not actually very sympathetic. The teaching by his master (the brother of his Monk teacher) played by Leung Ka Yan is not that interesting (except for a fight in the rain) and several characters are introduced whose history and role is not at all clear. The final fight is reasonable with interesting use of an iron ring by the renegade Monk. Unusually he is captured rather than killed. The Drunken Boxing scenes are rather wasted as the hero never actually seems to use that style in any of his fights. Not a bad film but could have been a lot better.

Ta Kun, a student of Shaolin, is bullied all the time by his fellow students. Ta Kun is forced to leave the Shaolin Temple once a corrupt monk, Hutak, takes over. An elder monk, Hunang, tells him to go to a Wu-Tang style family under the guide of a guy who looks exactly like, or is Ka-Yan Leung aka Beardy from legend of a fighter and the Victim. Ta Kun doesn't like learning kung fu here, so he's got to work a lot. But while he's working he's learning kung fu. In the end he's got to fight the new leading monk of the Shaolin Temple.This movie is very slow in the beginning and has some typical characters, like the villain monk who's got some big scars at his face. The fighting scenes are not remarkable. 5/10