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The 36 Deadly Styles (1979)


blue_skies

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Some truly awful comedy scenes, largely filled with mediocre kung fu fights and in places the dramatic scenes were incredibly boring. Also what were they thinking with Bolo in that wig!?! I kept hoping the finale would make up for the rest of the film but sadly not... The highlight was a short fight scene with Jack Long but I've seen better. Personally I wouldn't recommend it.

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It's awful... the people who revere this must be on shrooms....

They must be. I can't believe this is revered by anyone TBH.

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sifu iron perm
blue_skies said:
Some truly awful comedy scenes, largely filled with mediocre kung fu fights and in places the dramatic scenes were incredibly boring. Also what were they thinking with Bolo in that wig!?! I kept hoping the finale would make up for the rest of the film but sadly not... The highlight was a short fight scene with Jack Long but I've seen better. Personally I wouldn't recommend it.

i admit that i bought it for the reappearance of the ghost faced killer.

The film is pretty forgettable.

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Hwang Jang Lee with silver hair directed by Joseph Kuo should be good but this one is fairly average. Cheung Nick is the hero but the film is largely incoherent. Bolo as Hwang's right hand man appears to be wearing a mop on his head.Some ok action, the vengeance video DVD is english dubbed and wideish at least.

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So there's a martial arts clan run by Mark Long. One of his associates, played by Jack Long in a cameo, has defected from the clan and fled into Tibet, taking the book of the 36 Deadly Styles with him. Mark Long's top student, played by Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee, is sent after Jack's cohorts. Some are killed, the others are injured and go into hiding. Years later, one of Mark's men, played by Chan Lau, has caught up to one of the defectors and his martial brother's grown up son, Nick Cheung Lik. They flee to a Temple, where one of the other defectors has installed himself as a monk. Eventually, Chan Lau and his cohorts, including Bolo Yeung wearing a wig that looks like extensions on an African-American lady, catch up with their prey. Nick Cheung Lik falls in with another defector, Fan Mei-Shang, and his daughter, and trains for the final showdown.

As much as I hear praise being heaped upon Joseph Kuo for his willingness to at least try to defy convention, the plot here is especially weak. The whole bit about Jack Long is only mentioned in passing early on, climaxing with a tacked-on final duel between the two Longs at the end. Despite the fact that Jack Long's character has run off with the 36 Deadly Styles manual, and despite the fact that it's in film's title, it has little bearing on the rest of the actual movie. Beyond that, the bulk of the film is about Chan Lau and his cronies hunting Cheung Lik and the original defectors, occasionally switching over to a flashback of Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee beating the [spit] out of them.

The choreography is handled by Max Lee, who also worked on the Joseph Kuo/Hwang Jang Lee collaboration Dragon's Claws. It's pretty good and there's a lot of fighting. Hwang gets a good showing and is easily more talented than everybody else in the cast, losing only to a trick involving burning hay at the end. Bolo Yeung also gets more fight time than I've seen him get in other old school movies, so Bolo fans should be content. Jeannie Chang, who plays Fan Mei-Shang's daughter, also gets to show off some nice acrobatics and actually looks like Yukari Oshima when filmed from some angles. In the end, it gets a marginal recommendation for the action, but the story is pretty weak.

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I just finished to watch The 36 deadly styles.

I also just finished to read all the reviews on hkmdb and I'm very surprised by the bad comments on it.

I found it very good (I had already watched it around 10 years ago, and had forgotten the plot, but when I saw the first images, i knew that I had already watched it and the image of the monk Huang preparing his medicine wine with the snake confirmed that I had already saw it.

I agree with one of the reviewer that the movie doesn't deal at all with a 36 deadly styles kung fu , and the plot focuses on an unending revenge from Bolo and his brothers against the Huang family.

In my opinion, this is a very entertaining movie with good fights and Nick Cheung Lik and the girl Jeanie Chang are very good.

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Just watched the 36 Deadly Styles ending a bit of a fu dry spell for me...

 

Now that is just a good ol’ kung fu movie. Filled with fights from a cast including Hwang Jang Lee, Bolo, Mark Long, and Jack Long, with the consistently awesome Joseph Kuo directing. It would be criminal not to mention some the most ludicrous wigs I’ve seen for a good laugh to top it off!

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Firstly, I have to say that watching this movie remastered almost brought a tear to me eye. This is such an exciting time for kung fu cinema. Seeing a film I only saw back in the VHS days look so vibrant made me so happy. Now, onto the movie…

I’m not gonna lie, I love this movie. There’s practically no plot which initially makes it quite confusing. But once I set that aside, I was in for a treat. This is such a fight fest! There must be a scrap at least every five minutes, even if some are for comedic purposes. It’s a must for fight fans though. Nothing but classic, old school shapes here. And we get what we expect: some of the worst wigs you’ve ever seen, Chan Lau in the Dean Shek role, Bolo, Hwang Jang Lee, Jack Long and Mark Long (the cast is stacked!), some decent training sequences… It’s formulaic but it’s all good stuff.

I don’t think the fight scenes are quite as crisp as 7 Grandmasters or The Mystery of Chess Boxing but they’re still excellent. I recall this movie getting a bad wrap but I’m not entirely sure why. Is it the garbled plot and random characters popping up here and there (Jack Long and Mark Long don’t do anything until the last fifteen minutes)? Me? I loved it.

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I enjoyed this one a bit more than 7 Grandmasters . The plot is complete nonsense, but the movie is filled with great choreography, nice green scenery ( these remasters are superb ! ) and characters in ridiculous wigs. I wish I could have seen Bolo’s face when he was told what he was wearing ( he fights good here too, I like his movements) . A cool flick …I gotta say though …... this guy is possibly  the most annoying actor I’ve seen so far .

1C79395C-74D8-4046-82D5-BA550899A337.jpeg

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TibetanWhiteCrane

Damn... the shade thrown at 7 Grandmasters in this thread is perplexing. Aside from the fact that it is my number one favorite kung fu indie of all time, objectively speaking it's a well made film, a simple but effective narrative with some twists, fantastic, sprawling Taiwan locations, great cast, no annoying comedy, hardcore training scenes and some of the finest shapes action and weapons work of the era. Are we watching the same film? I realize my objectivity is a bit cloude by nostalgia, having watched the EH VHS since the late 90's, but still.... rating a pile of shit like 36 Deadly Styles over 7GM is madness to me. But hey... it's all opinion.

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The fights in 7 Grandmasters are excellent, better than 36 Deadly Styles . I just found myself not being annoyed/ frustrated at the non action parts in 36 more than Grandmasters ( aside from whenever red nose guy showed up ). 

One of my least favorite plots in kung fu is when someone promises another person not to fight or the person just has no skills period and gets beaten .  Watching Li Yi Min get beaten and treated bad throughout the first half was just frustrating. The second half however is gold.


But hey, I’m also a guy that thinks 5 Deadly Venoms Is one of the most overrated kung fu movies  🤷🏽‍♂️

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12 hours ago, TibetanWhiteCrane said:

Damn... the shade thrown at 7 Grandmasters in this thread is perplexing. Aside from the fact that it is my number one favorite kung fu indie of all time, objectively speaking it's a well made film, a simple but effective narrative with some twists, fantastic, sprawling Taiwan locations, great cast, no annoying comedy, hardcore training scenes and some of the finest shapes action and weapons work of the era. Are we watching the same film? I realize my objectivity is a bit cloude by nostalgia, having watched the EH VHS since the late 90's, but still.... rating a pile of shit like 36 Deadly Styles over 7GM is madness to me. But hey... it's all opinion.

For once I completely agree with you.

 

But yeah, it's all a matter of opinions, no disrespect to you @HeavenSword:bs_martialgreeting:

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Chu Liu Hsiang

The protagonists behave incredibly stupid, the different plots don't seem to get together (or I missed it), annoying comedy but I still found something to like in this obscurity.  And while I got used to ugly wigs ... too much is too much. I mean,

36DeadlyStyles+1979-16-b.jpg

WHY??

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DragonClaws
On 6/16/2022 at 8:02 AM, Chu Liu Hsiang said:

And while I got used to ugly wigs ... too much is too much. I mean,

 

It looks like theyve combined two different wigs for that avant garde hairstyle lol.

 

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One Armed Boxer

With the re-release of the Joseph Kuo boxset being split into smaller collections later this year, I decided it was probably time to get around to actually watching the original set I purchased when it first came out in 2021! Have to admit, 'The 36 Deadly Styles' probably wasn't the best start, so here's hoping it improves from here on in!  I gave it the full review treatment over at COF - 

https://cityonfire.com/the-36-deadly-styles-1979-taiwan-eureka-cinematic-vengeance-the-films-of-joseph-kuo-boxset/

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Drunken Monk
11 minutes ago, Akuma said:

Did, The world of drunken master get a Bluray release?

It’s on the same set as 36 Deadly Styles, from Eureka.

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legendarycurry
On 9/15/2023 at 9:21 AM, One Armed Boxer said:

With the re-release of the Joseph Kuo boxset being split into smaller collections later this year, I decided it was probably time to get around to actually watching the original set I purchased when it first came out in 2021! Have to admit, 'The 36 Deadly Styles' probably wasn't the best start, so here's hoping it improves from here on in!  I gave it the full review treatment over at COF - 

https://cityonfire.com/the-36-deadly-styles-1979-taiwan-eureka-cinematic-vengeance-the-films-of-joseph-kuo-boxset/

I reviewed this over in my Bolo  filmography watching topic ( which I hope to get back to one day......) Not my favorite film  by any means. will check out your review for sure!

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I tried to watch this film 6 times now (last time was in September) and it doesn't click at all for me. The beginning sequence up to when Nick and his uncle Sham get to the temple are really great, but then it falls flat on its nose. Im happy for everyone that enjoys this film because I cannot seem to get the same satisfaction out of it. I just feel that Hwang Jang Lee, Bolo, and even Fan Mei Sheng are super underused. And I still don't know what this movie is about!

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