Buddha's Palm

Young Chien-Fei Lung is a terrible fighter, until he stumbles upon Ku Han-Hun, the Flaming Cloud Devil, who takes him under his wing and teaches him the eight movements of Buddha's Palm, one of the most powerful martial arts in the world. But Ku is blind and so Chien-Fei sets out to find the one item that can cure him; in addition, he's looking for Ku's rivals from 20 years earlier, including Pi-Ku, Sun Pi-Ling, Heavenly Foot and Liu Piao-Piao, all of whom have secret weapons and skills of their own, not to mention convoluted relationships and shifting allegiances. Can Chien-Fei use his powers for good, or will he be destroyed by all these martial arts masters?

I can't actually give a synopsis of this film, it's so completely wacky and ludicrous! It may help to know it's from the famous Shaw Brothers, whose martial arts films were so over the top that the only way to view them is to just forget about logic and go with the flow. This film is no exception - it's a wild mix of martial arts, "Star Wars" style light sabers, maniacal laughter and very strange special effects. Often one can tell if a character is a bad guy by his maniacal laugh, but most of the male characters in this film have maniacal laughs at one point or another, so that's no help. A lovely thing in these movies is that there are female martial arts masters as well as male, although for some reason the women are only allowed to learn four of the eight movements of Buddha's Palm, a restriction that is never explained. But there you have it, there's no point to expecting explanations (or logic or to some degree even continuity) with the Shaw Brothers, just go with the flow and enjoy it on its own very silly merits.