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Shaolin Challenges Ninja
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Shaolin Challenges Ninja
Martial Arts / Chinese / 1978
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Supposedly one of the best martial arts movies ever made for it's variety of weapons and fighting styles including the legendarily hilarious Japanese Crab Technique.
Also my first Shaw Brothers movie (I think?).
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*Also my first Shaw Brothers movie (I think?).
This one's a toughie.
The problem here is that the movie totally changes halfway through and goes from crap to awesome. The question then becomes is the awesome worth the crap?
The movie takes a LONG time before any actual one-on-one fighting appears and even then it's between our hero and his wife.
Actually, scratch that, he's not a hero. He's actually an *******. It shouldn't even be called Heroes of the East, since the antagonists are the only characters actually doing anything even remotely heroic. It shouldn't even be called Shaolin Challenges Ninja, but I'm calling it that because that's at least vaguely accurate.
The premise is about as unintentionally sexist and racist as you could ask for. Our main character (whose name I don't remember, yes) is forced into arranged marriage.
Except they make a distinction that an "arranged" marriage is not a "forced" marriage.
Anyway marriage, boo. It seems like he stands on his principals by refusing since it's not his choice, but he's immediately swayed when he discovers that the Japanese girl he's asked to wed is actually NOT UGLY.
HOW ABOUT THAT? A JAPANESE GIRL WHO ISN'T UGLY!
Naturally she's is all kinds of bad wife material because she insists on practicing martial arts in ways that don't look utterly ****ing insulting (our main guy demonstrates the RIGHT way and there's no other way to describe it other than WRONG).
Eventually though, the two start fighting. Like literally trying to kill each other except not. They're literally walking around loaded with weapons under their clothes just to get each other and apparently when the girl decides to go all ninja on him, she crosses the line because "ninjitsu is murder".
To be fair, she stabbed him, but to be unfair he escalated that **** by being an insufferable arrogant cock.
Allow me to approximate the dialog:
And that's the whole deal. It insists on this facade of respecting Japanese disciplines, but when his nationalist claims follow her to Japan, all the best guys at her dojo suit up and stomp off to China to pound a mother****er. And he wins every time. It's stupid.
The girl never even enters into the picture again after that, the script just forgets about her while the men play with their toys.
That's the turning point, really. The first half is nothing if not irritating and sufferable only on the charisma of the actors, but when the 7 specialists show up to kick his ass it becomes an almost non-stop series of one-on-one fights till the end.
Fortunately these are pretty interesting and, at times, hilarious.
We see competing sword techniques, we see nun-chucks versus three-part-staves, we see judo versus kung-fu, and it's cool. They're pretty neat fights and they even get a bit inventive. My only real gripe is that the Japanese characters are plainly presented to be inferior to our Chinese character, not just in terms of general skill, but each of their respective specialties they seem to be less competent than him in. And he's looks so smug when he wins too.
Surprisingly, the long-awaited Crab Technique is reserved for the Very Definitely Final Fight with the ninja which is far from the only thing that's unintentionally funny about it.
It opens with our guy preparing for the ninja to appear by scattering nutshells on the ground to hear him. The ninja appears, he knifes him in the chest, rushes to him, and is immediately stabbed in the back by a sword, revealing that it wasn't actually him running out the door, but a totally unconvincing dummy. It was SO FUNNY to see this actor, the main character, an unbeatable hero, suddenly jumpcut into a dummy and killed.
The whole fight's this way, loaded with underhanded ******** left and right, but the most unfair thing is that unlike every other fight which lasts one encounter, the ninja runs away and ambushes him again later. TWICE.
Actually, make that three times, because after they resort to swords and ditch them to go to Crane versus Crab (which yes, is very silly), the ninja runs away a fourth time to hide in a river. Our main guy follows his obvious blowpipe and attacks it only to get punked out by poison in the face. BOOM, down.
It was really shocking. And honestly kinda ********.
They carry him back and I guess this is where he learns humility in the face of Japan's greatest of martial arts, ninjitsu, right? No, he was faking and checkmates the ninja when he's unprepared.
And the moral of the story is... Chinese kungfu is better than Japanese... kung... fu... what?
Final Verdict: [Meh...]
The problem here is that the movie totally changes halfway through and goes from crap to awesome. The question then becomes is the awesome worth the crap?
The movie takes a LONG time before any actual one-on-one fighting appears and even then it's between our hero and his wife.
Actually, scratch that, he's not a hero. He's actually an *******. It shouldn't even be called Heroes of the East, since the antagonists are the only characters actually doing anything even remotely heroic. It shouldn't even be called Shaolin Challenges Ninja, but I'm calling it that because that's at least vaguely accurate.
The premise is about as unintentionally sexist and racist as you could ask for. Our main character (whose name I don't remember, yes) is forced into arranged marriage.
Except they make a distinction that an "arranged" marriage is not a "forced" marriage.
Anyway marriage, boo. It seems like he stands on his principals by refusing since it's not his choice, but he's immediately swayed when he discovers that the Japanese girl he's asked to wed is actually NOT UGLY.
HOW ABOUT THAT? A JAPANESE GIRL WHO ISN'T UGLY!
Naturally she's is all kinds of bad wife material because she insists on practicing martial arts in ways that don't look utterly ****ing insulting (our main guy demonstrates the RIGHT way and there's no other way to describe it other than WRONG).
Eventually though, the two start fighting. Like literally trying to kill each other except not. They're literally walking around loaded with weapons under their clothes just to get each other and apparently when the girl decides to go all ninja on him, she crosses the line because "ninjitsu is murder".
To be fair, she stabbed him, but to be unfair he escalated that **** by being an insufferable arrogant cock.
Allow me to approximate the dialog:
Originally Posted by He
What are you doing with my weapons?
Originally Posted by She
They're garbage!
Originally Posted by He
They're not garbage, they're historical weapons of battle! Your weapons are inferior derivatives of Chinese weapons!
Originally Posted by She
No, Japanese weapons are better!
Originally Posted by He
But I beat you all the time!
The girl never even enters into the picture again after that, the script just forgets about her while the men play with their toys.
That's the turning point, really. The first half is nothing if not irritating and sufferable only on the charisma of the actors, but when the 7 specialists show up to kick his ass it becomes an almost non-stop series of one-on-one fights till the end.
Fortunately these are pretty interesting and, at times, hilarious.
We see competing sword techniques, we see nun-chucks versus three-part-staves, we see judo versus kung-fu, and it's cool. They're pretty neat fights and they even get a bit inventive. My only real gripe is that the Japanese characters are plainly presented to be inferior to our Chinese character, not just in terms of general skill, but each of their respective specialties they seem to be less competent than him in. And he's looks so smug when he wins too.
Surprisingly, the long-awaited Crab Technique is reserved for the Very Definitely Final Fight with the ninja which is far from the only thing that's unintentionally funny about it.
It opens with our guy preparing for the ninja to appear by scattering nutshells on the ground to hear him. The ninja appears, he knifes him in the chest, rushes to him, and is immediately stabbed in the back by a sword, revealing that it wasn't actually him running out the door, but a totally unconvincing dummy. It was SO FUNNY to see this actor, the main character, an unbeatable hero, suddenly jumpcut into a dummy and killed.
The whole fight's this way, loaded with underhanded ******** left and right, but the most unfair thing is that unlike every other fight which lasts one encounter, the ninja runs away and ambushes him again later. TWICE.
Actually, make that three times, because after they resort to swords and ditch them to go to Crane versus Crab (which yes, is very silly), the ninja runs away a fourth time to hide in a river. Our main guy follows his obvious blowpipe and attacks it only to get punked out by poison in the face. BOOM, down.
It was really shocking. And honestly kinda ********.
They carry him back and I guess this is where he learns humility in the face of Japan's greatest of martial arts, ninjitsu, right? No, he was faking and checkmates the ninja when he's unprepared.
*SIGH*
And the moral of the story is... Chinese kungfu is better than Japanese... kung... fu... what?
Final Verdict: [Meh...]