36 Crazy Fists is Jackie Chan's first choreograpy credit, but the film is heavily advertised as having him in it. It does not - although this is not the films fault, its the advertisers. Regardless, this film is a bit of a snore, with many cliches, cringes, and moments of humour falling through. The film follows the son of a murdered shopkeeper, brutally killed by Manchu gangsters. These gangsters terrorize the town, so the son sets out with two monks to learn kung fu. Nobody will teach him, so he learns from an old drunk sometimes, as well as a Shaolin monk occasionally. He then blunders his way through Kung Fu challenges by cheating, learning on the fly, an so on. He eventually defeats a white haired Manchu gang leader that looks straight out of Clan of the White Lotus.
Well, there isn't much hope here. The transfer of this film (on Prime) looks like it has sat in the sun to long. Grainy, bleached, and quite bad. I am certain some of that is due to shoddy production, but I will avoid criticizing that further. The fight choreography is not bad at all - crediting Jackie Chan's talent - although there are moments of bleh. Even so, the story, acting, plot, cinematography, set design, and tone of the movie are all just awful. The humour falls completely flat. The characters are horrid. They often cheat on competitions. The story was incomprehensible. Oof this was hard to watch. There were some moments of so bad its good glory. Moments of odd incredulity, and wacky nonsense that made me laugh, but more at the film than with it. Easy to avoid this one, its bland, and rather bad through and through. May be some moments of fun for those who enjoy bad films.
Well, there isn't much hope here. The transfer of this film (on Prime) looks like it has sat in the sun to long. Grainy, bleached, and quite bad. I am certain some of that is due to shoddy production, but I will avoid criticizing that further. The fight choreography is not bad at all - crediting Jackie Chan's talent - although there are moments of bleh. Even so, the story, acting, plot, cinematography, set design, and tone of the movie are all just awful. The humour falls completely flat. The characters are horrid. They often cheat on competitions. The story was incomprehensible. Oof this was hard to watch. There were some moments of so bad its good glory. Moments of odd incredulity, and wacky nonsense that made me laugh, but more at the film than with it. Easy to avoid this one, its bland, and rather bad through and through. May be some moments of fun for those who enjoy bad films.