The Shaolin Invincibles

                                                     
Director: Hou Cheng
Year: 1978
Rating: 5.5
Dubbed - but very good picture quality on YouTube

Aka - The Thrilling Sword

This is a fairly standard kung fu revenge film but in its favor there are two bodyguards to the Emperor - who are gorillas that know kung fu. And if that isn't enough for you, how about tongue fu - two men with 2 feet tongues that can be used as weapons. An ex-girlfriend of mine could touch her nose with her tongue, but she couldn't give a physical tongue-lashing with it. As far as I know. These tongues are deadly. The strangest thing though isn't the gorillas or the tongues but the very peculiar transitions between scenes from inside the palace to outside in a mountain range. It made no sense at all. Still there is a fair amount of action and two lovely ladies giving many men a beating. Those would be Chia Ling and Doris Lung. Helping them get revenge are Carter Huang and Dorian Tan Tao-liang. The main villain is the wonderfully slimy Chen Hung-lieh who played a rotter in Come Drink with Me (Jade Faced Tiger) and over 150 other films. He had the sort of face that made you immediately check to see if your wallet was still there. And if it was, check to see if the money was still there.



Here he plays a tyrannical Emperor who kills entire families for the smallest perceived slight. One of those families was the Liang clan in one night of slaughter.  A monk jumps in and takes a small girl away before she is killed. The Emperor's men think - oh it is only a girl - what is the big deal. Clearly, they haven't watched many kung fu films. Chia Ling (aka Judy Lee) is trained by the monks over the next 12 years in Shaolin martial arts and so is her sister Doris - though where she came from is not entirely clear. Finally, when they are ready, the head monk tells them, go forth my children and kill. Kill a lot. And they follow his instructions. Pretty soon the authorities notice all these dead bodies and rumors of two young women. So, they set traps for them. Like every 100 feet it seems. An entire inn is filled with killers waiting for them and they still try and poison them too.



Along the way to the Palace, they pick up Carter Huang who was sent by the temple to help them. And Dorian though he doesn't show up till the one-hour mark. Then they meet the gorillas. Who only have an Achilles head. Think of how long it must have taken to train kung fu to a gorilla and who choreographed it so realistically, I wonder. They must have gotten the flea-bitten suits from a circus going out of business. And the Emperor takes a liking to Chia Ling and gives her a why don't you come up and see me sometime order.



They all infiltrate the Palace as easy as a trip to Walmart, but all these secret passages take them out into that mountain range where much of the fighting takes place. Maybe they could only rent the Palace for a few days. The fighting isn't bad and isn't great, but sometimes quantity makes up for quality and Chia Ling and Doris Lung are a great pair to watch. That makes a dozen straight old-school kung fu Taiwanese films for me. That is a lot of kicks, killing and bad dubbing. I enjoyed most of them and still have a bunch that I want to get to, but another day. It feels right to stop when you watch goriallas doing kung fu.