Director: Wong Jing
Year: 1993
Rating: 8.0
This film has always had a wide variety of opinions on it. Those that hate it and those that love it. Put me in the latter category. It is easy to see why this has engendered both sides - it is nearly unfathomable, chaotic, absurd, exaggerated wire-fu to the nth degree and filled with juvenile humor but at the same time it is glorious in its pageantry, beautiful women, heroic characters and over the top wire-fu action. There are moments when you just go holy shit, how did they do that. I just find it hugely entertaining even if it is more confusing than a Rubix cube. It begins with a narrative prologue that tries to explain all these various warring clans and their attempts to become Master of the World of Martial Arts. There is a scroll hidden in a sword that has been captured by the Golden Lion that gives him great powers. Now all the different kung fu sects are trying to obtain it so that the Golden Lion will not be so powerful and so that they can become Master of the World of Martial Arts. Bring a scorecard. You will need it. And it still won’t really help.
This gets confusing to explain because within a few minutes so many sects, people, swords and stances are introduced. It will make your head spin and it never gets much better. Don’t really bother trying to understand the plot – just be dazzled by the imagery and action. When the story begins it follows a married couple and their little boy who are friends of the Golden Lion. The Jinx Brothers (Leung Kar-yan and Zhang Chun-zhong) show up demanding the location of the Golden Lion and when the couple refuses they grab their son. Then the couple’s powerful master Chang San-fung (Sammo Hung) intervenes but not before the son is poisoned with jinx palm. Later in a gut wrenching scene the couple commits suicide rather than reveal this secret. Before the mother dies, she - Cheung Man - tells her boy "take a look at all these faces. Remember them. Someday you must take your revenge" and in one last motherly bit of advice tells him "never believe a woman. The more beautiful, the more she will lie." Good words for many of us to live by! Though I still think this often used device of telling your children to get revenge some day is a bit unfair. Fortunately, my parents were quite old when they died and had no enemies other than maybe the cable company. The father is played by Francis Ng who explodes his own heart from within.
Hopefully, the boy has a very good memory because there were a lot of people to remember. He of course grows up to be none other than Jet Li who because of the jinx palm has no kung fu powers. He is brought up by Master Chang who tells Jet that he should be a virgin to practice kung-fu but that his own dicky is up every morning. Ok, did not really need to know that Sammo. A member of his sect (the almost always villainous Ngai Sing) along with a female honey trap from the No Mercy sect (Gigi Lai) tries to kill him, but the ravishing Chingmy Yau from the Ming sect turns up to save him. After escaping and having his first erection lying next to Chingmy Jet Li acquires great kung fu powers by tricking this kung-fu ogre, who is tied to a giant rolling rock, into revealing the secret behind his powers. I think it was lying next to Chingmy myself that brought back his power.
Soon all the different sects meet up in an incredible spectacle of a battle that is both epic and beautiful - full of great characters, color, flags, underground traps, spears as big as logs, reflecting shields and death everywhere - almost Authurian in feeling - with the fighting below the earth particularly amazing. Mind you, I had no idea who was fighting who or why – it is total chaos and flashing images edited at light speed – and little attempt to make it coherent but it is just stunning. Everyone seems to be fighting everyone. Jet enters into this melee and damn if being a virgin isn’t true as he uses the Great Solar Stance to send exploding balls. And then it begins to get confusing.
Later, Jet Li tangles with the evil princess
daughter of the Emperor who looks exactly like his mother did which is not
too surprising since she too is played by Cheung Man. And two Cheung Man’s
is never too many. We never learn the reason for this resemblance. She is
splendid in this film – equally evil and sensual and so damn photogenic.
In fact, there was supposed to be a sequel to this film that may have explained
her resemblance as well as many other loose ends, but it was never made due
to poor box office results. I can't imagine why because this is a wonderfully
fascinating film and it's a shame that the second part was never made.
Even taking this into account it is still well worth watching - an epic HK fantasy flying film with more extras than Ben-Hur. A warning though to those who like their kung fu the old-fashioned way - this film is chock full wire-fu choreographed by Sammo. And a reminder that Wong Jing directs so there is a lot of intermittent silly humor that the film could easily have done without. But at the end of the day we get Chingmy, Gigi, two Cheung Man’s, Sammo and Jet Li. I noticed that in 2022 Kung Fu Cult Master I and II are listed in HKMDB from Wong Jing. I had read that the sequel of this film was actually shot but never cut and I was hoping that this might be it but it appears to be a remake or a new version taken from the source "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber" Louis Cha. Maybe someday Wong will go back and cut it if this is true,
