Starring: Lisa Chang, Meng Fei, Lung Sikar, Jimmy Wang Yu Directed By: Joseph Kuo Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC Label: Ground Zero Number of Items: 1 Release Date: September 24, 2002 Theatrical Release Date: 1981
more imaginative than good, but still fun 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
Old Skool Kung Fu!! I really enjoyed this movie,,,,,I though It started off kinda slow,,,but the old school kung fu absolutely made up for it. The story carries a tight plot,,the cinematography and choregraphy well done,,,,I do agree with my amazon collague,,this flick appears to be on a fixed butget,,which is as hugh surprize, considering it casted Mark and Jack long,,and directed by the famous Joseph Kuo. But be not detoured,,this is a must have for the collect, definately a gem!!
3.5, but a fun fun movie so I had to keep in line with the other reviewers First off, mang fei plays the hero. How many great movies has he been the star of? Prodigal Boxer is all I can thnk of but this beat the sheeit out of that.
Pictrue is full screened which wasn't too dissapointing. Sound quality is pretty loud but very muffled, and picture quality is just fine for old school fans.
So the movie starts off witht the best fight of the movie. I like the final one better, but this was true action. I will further elaborate on the ending. So we see that mark long(the bad guy in this) was taught early on with jack long and mang fei's father in kung fu and then took his skillz and went elsewhere. So his own school that mark long(ghostface killer) sets up is kind of like a gang of course and he needs to be stopped. The great Jack Long is giving the task of making this little kid the most unstoppable fighter ever. You have to love a joseph kuo production, no half-assin it around here. I mean he gives you his blood sweat and tears for these movies, truly. The little kids training scenes are some of my favorite parts of this movie. So meng fei starts training at a VERY young age and eventually becomes a bit of a spoiled little brat, btu we forgive him because he has conversated with like 2 people hsi entire life(20 years). So Jack logn tells him to go to a school and get the secret kung fu manual. What meng fie does next is a Kuo original, he fights all sorts fo weird stone men including ones who are really cool actually walking and fighting stone men. I was overly impressed by all of this. So once he gets by all of them he has to find fight this little kid. And one of the greatest lines of the movie is when they talk about how the little kid is 80 years old. Well he looks liek 40 so it isn't as far off as some movies would go. Now this "kid" pulls out some of the craziest styles I have ever seen and performs them very well.
After he gets the book we get a VERY emotialnal moment and i gotta give kuo big ups on that. SO mang fei with his invincible body that can beat down stone warriors at will goes to fight mark long. And ghostface killer comes at him hard. I have to be honest, if the finale was literally ANYONE else than mark long, this movie would have gotten a 4 stars. He is so beaituful to watch, trained and recruited by Kuo straight frmo the taiwanese opera, him and his brother help round out the list of the GREATEST stars that kung fu has ever seen. And teh skillful and way hot Jeannie cheng is in this as jack long's daughter and we also get to see her in action in the final fight. So the finale is better than it should be and the ending is oh so weird. And there is a part early in the movie with a frog that got the wtf award for sure, but they do actually try to explain this in an incredibely weird ending.
Have fun watching this, don't expect 7 grandmasters. They rob you of a good mark, jack long fight, but you do get one, better than nothing, right?
ANOTHER JOSPEH KUO GEM this flick is amazing i gave it a 4 because this is noth jospeh kuo's best but probably his most underrated and its one of my favs. but im not a meng fei fan but imma fan of the famous long brothers, jack long (7 grandmasters, born invincible, & the mystery of chessboxing) and mark long (the mystery of chessboxing, 7 grandmasters, born invincible). but i know meng fei is a beast because half of his films are dope so you cant knock his hustle. the dvd is great, great sound and dubbing. something that groundzero had a problem with all their other releases. i like the voices they gave the characters in the movie as well. but the other reason i gave it a 4 is because of the fullscreen shot it look sloppy though. if it was presented in widescreen lets say 2.40:1 this is no doubt a 5. this movie also reminds you alot of a low budgeted 36th chamber of shaolin only 30 minutes less. the final fight between meng fei and mark long is classic. oh yeah you can catch the soundbytes from this movie on wu-tang clan's wu-tang forever album its a classical lp check the music section for more info
Unbeaten 28 This flick was pretty decent. Let me explain a little about this flick without giving too much away.
One of the things that I immediately picked up about this one is that there are not a lot of actors here - perhaps "low budget issues" - who knows? Brother "Tiger" (played by superstar Meng Fei) is awesome in this one. Also check him out in "The Green Jade Statuette" - another hot flick in my book. The plot picks up very early here! When Tiger was a baby his parents were killed. This evil villan (played by Mark Long - aka - Ghost Faced Killer) tried to wipe out the entire family. The baby was rescued and taken to a Shaolin temple where his teacher was given further instructions on the proper techniques for raising him. This is when he was renamed "Tiger." (This is quite similar to "Born Invisible", which is a great flick starring Carter Wong). Tiger is given a special diet and trained vigorously in kung fu. He had to endure extreme hardship and not shown pity in the midst of his painful training.
As a child he remained in hiding because the evil villan that killed his family and wrecked havoc in town never stopped looking for him to kill him and all others associated with his family. When he got older, he was told what happened to his parents. Tiger sworn to get revenge, but his teacher knew he would be no match for this evil villan if he could not withstand the ultimate test of going up against the Shaolin Unbeaten 28. He had to do what no one before him had done and each chamber was more difficult than the one before. At the end of the test, the prize is a book full of Shaolin secret kung fu techniques. Will his 20 years of kung fu training help him to get past the Shaolin Unbeaten 28?
Although I enjoyed this flick, I must warn you that his sister will soon become quite annoying. I wanted to completely cut her out of this one altogether!!!!!!
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