|
|
|
|
|
The Eight Masters
The Eight Masters is haphazardly strung together with a series of nearly incomprehensible and extraordinarly convenient events, making the whole production come off like it was written after a major bender of Jagermeister and Benadryl, or perhaps in 1970's terms, Courvoisier and NyQuil. But, since director Joseph Kuo stuffs this film to the gills with plenty of hard-hitting old-school kung fu action, who cares about little things like story and plot? Okay, for completion's sake, we'll go into a little detail about The Eight Masters' story. Basically, it's another variant on the tried and true old-school revenge device, with Carter Wong playing Chu Shiao Chieh, whose father was killed by the titular eight kung fu masters. After being raised in a Shaolin temple, learning their forms of martial arts, and then surviving the tests of the legendary bronzemen, Chu sets out to save his mother from the wrath of the masters, which may or may not involve a tournament, which then may or may not be fixed by a woman who may or may not be Chu's sister, because the main master may or may not actually be Chu's uncle.
Some of this reviewer's inability to get a firm grasp on The Eight Masters' story may be a case of too many delicious tallboys of Surly the night before, or perhaps the atrocious dubbing featured on the Crash Cinema DVD, which is the version currently available for streaming on instant Netflix. But one still gets the sense that even if this movie was presented in a pristine form on Blu-ray in its' original language, there would still be the proverbial plot holes that you could drive a truck through. At any rate, if you haven't guessed by now, if you're looking for a film featuring Oscar-caliber acting and/or a narrative that will make you deeply contemplate life, the universe, and your belly button lint, then perhaps this isn't the movie for you. However, if you're looking for a generous and bursting cornucopia of old-school fisticuffs, you won't go wrong with dedicating ninety-three minutes of your life to watching The Eight Masters. While it's not in any sense a polished top-tier entry, there's still a great amount of action scenes, and a nice amount of variety within them. From the first reel's inventive training sequences to the final reel's series of brawls that feature a wide swath of martial arts styles and weapons (including my personal favorite, a metal hand on a staff) kung fu fans are not going to be left wanting when it comes to the quotient of classically styled mano-a-mano combat. RATING: 6 |
