Shaolin Invincible Sticks (1978)

Too much of everything

From my favorite movies..

Excellent but underrated film

Best movie of this year hands down!

More low-budget kung fu madness, just one in a shed load full of cheap, rare, usually bad '70s martial arts flicks released to budget DVD in recent months. This is an effective, predictable, action-packed offering which is a fine contender for the award of "worst dubbing job" ever – yep the terrible cockney accents and bizarre lilting British voices on display here are absolutely atrocious, a mixture of the familiar (the same British guy who dubs almost every '70s kung fu flick) and the just plain awful. In fact some of the dubbing is so poor it makes the scenes hard to watch (especially with the whiny, spoilt guy who fawns after his father all the while, the most annoying voice ever).Aside from a couple of unwise sub-plots, this is a lean, action-orientated type of film, with a plot familiar to anyone with the slightest inkling of Hong Kong style flicks: an old, white-haired guy roams the countryside, killing every stick fighter he meets. That's it, the entire plot. Chang Yi plays the villain and is excellent in the role, it's a shame he disappears for a good forty minutes but its worth sticking around to see him battle in the inventive finale, where the hero ingeniously makes use of the bamboo canes to defeat his enemy. Said hero is played by newcomer Don Wong, unfamiliar to me, but just another in the long, long line of Jackie Chan-style imitators. He's neither particularly good nor particularly bad, just so so, and very unmemorable.The film's emphasis is on comedy for the first half, drama for the second, the usual template. Some of the (very cultural-based) humour is effective, at other times it drags. Kam Kong (no relation) is excellent as the big, bald fighter whose first dialogue is "Bean curd! Come and get your lovely bean curd!". There are a ton of action scenes, all of them involving stick fighting. Boring you might think, but there are all kinds of sticks – wobbly sticks, short sticks, spiked sticks, long sticks, and my favourite, the massive log that Kong carries! The fights are choreographed well without being particularly spectacular, but I would say there is nothing very memorable here which stands out. Saying that, this is (for the most part) painless viewing, although probably one for the initiated rather than the newcomer.

In SHAOLIN INVINCIBLE STICKS, the somewhat pampered son of a famous stick-fighting family falls from grace (the family pole got stole) and must forever after prove himself worthy of respect. The one thing that he has going for him is his ability with sticks of every size; because, as most of us well know, it's not the SIZE of the Stick that counts, it's the SKILL with which one wields said stick. Two sticks are better than one (though THAT'S a matter of personal preference) and an extension rarely hurts... Just remember: keep a tight grip on one's pole at all times; just as the hero here does after beating after beating leads to an explosive climax...

For fans of stick fighting this is a treat though the actual fighting, though featuring nearly every type of stick (including an iron bar) is not to the same standard as say '8 Diagram Pole Fighter'. But Don Wong Tao, though not a great actor, is athletic and dominates the screen. Chang Yi is great as Lu Tai-yeh, a Silver Fox type figure who for reasons never explained wants to kill every other stick fighter he can find. Ha Kwong Li and Kam Kong help along the way. The story is very ordinary, the comedy more than usually annoying (except for the probably unintentional humour of a teacher's dying words to his idiot son) but the final fight in a bamboo grove is worth waiting for. The Vengeance DVD is a reasonable print with bad dubbing. The only extras are a deleted scene.

A very under-rated martial arts film, its got great action and humour and I strongly recommend any martial arts movie fan to watch this. It is true that majority of the fighting in this film uses sticks and has very little hand to hand combat but nevertheless its a good movie and great action. I only wish that more time and money could've been spend to give the the movie more of a story line i.e. some romance which was evident between the two main characters in the film. The ending could have been longer and better. The English dubbing could have been improved, but hey I would keep their funny accents since those give the movie humour. I agree this film is better than a lot of more so called good martial arts movies like Big Boss.