The Ghostfaced Killer himself (Mark Long, "The Mystery of Chess Boxing") is an evil, ambitious fighter, whose latest victim's infant son is taken by the killer's ex-classmate (Jack Long, "7 Grandmasters") to train in the Iron Body style of kung fu at Shaolin. After years and years of laborious practice, the boy (now played by Meng Fei, "The Green Jade Statuette") must pass the ultimate test: The unbeaten 28; consisting of tricks and traps, fighters made of stone and bronze, and a couple of real dudes too. All of his mental and physical skills will be needed to pass. Then, if he is successful, he will receive the ultimate training manual which, if studied correctly, will enable him to go after that jerk who killed his parents, and qualify him for a 4.9% APR on a new Chevy Blazer.
This actually came as a bit of a disappointment. I hate calling out director Joseph Kuo, who mastered the sublime "7 Grandmasters" (one of the greatest kung fu films ever made), but this was poorly done. The whole movie has kind of a choppy, thrown together feel. The editing is also below average. The movie doesn't suck, but it could have been SO much better. It certainly has moments, just not enough of them. With that in mind, most of the scenes where he works his way through the unbeaten 28 are pretty cool, and the finale is not too shabby, but again, suffers from bad editing.
I was really hoping for a widescreen picture, but Ground Zero pilfered my hopes once again. Oh, well. It doesn't suffer too much and the picture quality itself is colorful and fairly decent. Yet another flick with a debatable rating. I was leaning toward 2.5/5 but settled on 3. It was enjoyable enough to recommend, but with some hefty reservations.
1980