Shaolin vs. Black Magic (1983)

Shaolin vs. Black Magic (1983)
aka: Weird Story
Chinese Title: 小和尚捉妖
Translation: Little Monk Catches Demon

Starring: Yu Kuo-Tung, Wang Ryong, Kong Wan-Hsing, Kim Yoo-Haeng, Ma Chin-Ku, Ho Hing-Nam, Chiang Ching-Yen, Lee Eun-Sook, Suen Siu-Ming, Im Eun-Joo
Director: Wu Chia-Chun
Action Director: ???

Another Hong Kong/South Korean co-production from Wu Chia-Chun, the man who gave us the same year's Shaolin vs. Tachi and South Shaolin vs. North Shaolin, plus Bruce Lee Against Supermen and Jackie and Bruce to the Rescue. This one is odd, in that it actually reminded me of a completely unrelated film, Rape of the Sword. It has been debated whether or not that movie is an adaptation of Wang Dulu's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. If it is, then it is doubly fascinating because the story of that film reverses the roles, making the Li Mu-Bai stand-in the villain and the Jade Fox and Jen the heroines. In the case of Shaolin vs. Black Magic, it felt (to me) like a dime store version of Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre, but with the Six Schools (mainly Shaolin) being the heroes and the Evil Sect being...well...actually evil. 

The film opens with a woman named Yuen Kee (Lee Eun-sook, of Wild Panther and Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guards) and her female entourage entering a mysterious cave. They are joined by a bunch of fighters who materialize from the cave walls. Yuen Kee performs a spell to resurrect her father, Wu San (Wang Ryong aka Mike Wong). Wu San declares that they, the Moon Worshipper's Clan, must either subject the Six Schools (Shaolin, Wu Dang, Sin Cheng, Kunlun, and two others) to their clan, or destroy them. He also adds that they must do it before Shaolin and Wu Dang can unite the Miraculous Mirror and Golden Buddha. We quickly cut to a scene of Wu San murdering the heads of three of the schools, including Im Eun-joo (Dragon Fist and My Name Called Bruce). Three down, three to go.

We then switch to Shaolin, where two things are going on. First, we have our main hero, Lu Chen (Yu Kuo-Tung, of Shaolin vs. Tai Chi and War of the Shaolin Temple), who works in the kitchen. He has been forbidden (for undisclosed reasons) from learning kung fu, but he has been learning in secret from a (supposedly) mute monk who walks around in leg shackles. At the same time, the head of Sin Cheng School (Ma Chin-Ku, Cantonen Iron Kung Fu and Ninja in the Dragon's Den), shows up at Shaolin to tell the Abbot and senior-most monk (Ho Hing-Nam, of Revenge of the Shaolin Master and A Massacre Survivor), about the murders of the other masters. The three go to Wu San's grave--a flashback shows that he was defeated in combat with the six school leaders 20 years prior--and find that the body is missing.

After some completely random aside about some kung fu master sneaking into the temple to fight the monks, Lu Chen is teamed up with a portly monk (Kim Yoo-haeng, of The Tiger of Northland and The 18 Amazones) to go to Wu Dang (led by Chang San-Feng, the legendary personage played by Sammo Hung in Kung Fu Cult Master and Donnie Yen in New Kung Fu Cult Master) to fetch the Miraculous Mirror. They reach Wu Dang and depart with Brother Kong (Kong Wan-Hsing, of Magnificent Warriors and Lucky Seven 2), the top Wu Dang student. All three of them are carrying the Miraculous Mirror, although only one of them is real. After a fight with the Moon Worshipper's Clan in a restaurant, the three men separate. They are attacked by ghosts, wizards, and jiangshi, and Brother Kong is killed (or captured) by the clan. At the same time, Wu San and his minions are challenging the Sin Cheng leader to a duel while his daughter and her fiancé are fleeing to Shaolin for protection. It all culminates in a big fight at Shaolin between the monks and the Moon Worshipper's Clan.

Shaolin vs. Black Magic, like Shaolin vs. Tai Chi, feels like a movie that was made three or four years too late for the genre. It suffers from all-over-the-place script and too many characters, much like SvTC, and the fight choreography is old school, but anachronistic when you consider what the Yuen Clan, Ching Siu-Tung and Lau Kar-Leung were doing in 1983 in their kung fu films. There is some confusion about the main villain: he is referred to as Wu San by the characters, but in the flashback sequence, they call him "Nan Kun-Jin". Why both names? Was he resurrected into a new body and given a new name? And what is the story about the young fighter with the red nose who sneaks into Shaolin? He fights with Lu Chen and disappears from the narrative with no explanation as to who he was or what he wanted with Shaolin. (EDIT: the inability of director Wu Chia-Chun to give sufficient attention to any one plot point before losing interest and moving onto the next, leaving everything undeveloped, was a liability in both Shaolin vs. Tai Chi and North Shaolin vs. South Shaolin, too)

Several main characters enter the narrative with no real introduction, like Brother Kong from Wu Dang or the portly monk who accompanies our hero. The asshole senior monk (Suen Siu-Ming, of Lady Killer and The Powerful Men) shows up to berate Lu Cheng for learning kung fu in secret, but disappears from the rest of the movie, including the climax at Shaolin. Three of leaders of the six schools show up, are killed, and are no longer mentioned...and we never actually learn who they were or which school each of them represented. And the subplot involving the Sin Cheng leader's daughter and her fiancé never really goes anywhere, although they do participate in the climax. Several main characters are killed unceremoniously, too, which also indicates this movie was just badly directed.

The action is just alright. The traditional shapes aren't bad, but some of the background fights during group melees are just bad. The worst offender is the actress who plays the Sin Cheng daughter, who stiffly walks into the final brawl, stiffly (and slowly) waves a flute around as a weapon, and looks like she isn't taking the fight seriously. There are a lot of supernatural elements: like headless female ghosts (or female sorcerers who can use magic to detach their heads) and one girl who can extend her neck like a rokurokubi (played by a vacuum hose with a papier-mâché head). However, don't go in expecting detailed and disgusting rituals like you'd find in a Shaw Brothers horror film of the same era (i.e. The Boxer's Omen and Bewitched).

The film's resident McGuffins, the Golden Buddha and Miraculous Mirror, can fire colored lights at their opponents and are used a few times. There is also a "Miraculous Staff" that shows up at the end. The latter was described earlier as a dangerous weapon that can kill people indiscriminately, but we just see the heroes using it and stabbing the main villain with it (i.e. there is no reason in what we see in the film for it to be described the way it is). The fact that it can break into two parts makes me wonder if the staff is the "Heaven Sword" and "Dragon Sabre" of the film. Whatever. In any case, this is for completists only.