Sadly Over-hyped

A Masterpiece!

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I came across this searching for a Chen Kuan Tai (The Dark One) movie I had not seen. The ones Chen writes, direct and even produces are so worth viewing. I adore The Dark One but this....is sad, not in an emotional way, but production wise. Chen Kuan Tai and Billy Chong do the best they can to succeed in this movie. I was rolling when the villain, The Black Monster, sends his minions out to capture Chen Kuan Tai's character Wong Lee after he's gone a few rounds with The Monster and Main Cronies. The minions literally give up. None of them are prepared to die for The Black Monster. Especially not fighting against Wong Lee - a man whom they all admit they could NEVER defeat. They unanimously agree to quit - the search for Lee and apparently their jobs - and walk off into the twilight. I did not see them again in the movie. I'd quit looking for Lee as well. To quote CKC's character Chen Tien Chun from Eagle's Claw: "We both know you don't have the ability to match me". None of these minions were even close to having skills strong enough to withstand a beating from Wong Lee. The finale fight is worth watching. Chen Kuan Tai and Billy Chong show they are always worth watching. Skip to the last 20-ish minutes to watch the training and fight scenes.

INVINCIBLE MONKEY FIST is a vanity piece for Shaw Brothers star Chen Kuan Tai, here trying to break out of the Hong Kong mould and establish himself as a worldwide star. Others attempted this during the late '70s/early '80s, some successful (Jackie Chan, eventually) and others not (John Liu). Kuan Tai travels to Indonesia to write and direct as well as starring in this mini-film epic shot in Java.The story features Kuan Tai as a visiting martial artist who encounters a criminal gang and spends the rest of the movie having running battles with them. The descriptive text plays up his monkey style and the Indonesian form of Silat but these aren't very noticeable in what is a rather routine basher.Indonesian martial artist Billy Chong, who had a small but interesting career in the genre, appears in just his second film. Kuan Tai seems to be inspired by BOXER FROM SHANTUNG and includes a number of set-pieces in which his character works his way through a room full of vicious goons. The Indonesian actors ham it up outrageously and the dubbing is very poor. It's not very good, but I do wish it had been.

Billy is hot for the hired help on his father's birthday but there will be no party. Lawless thugs arrive and kill everyone and take over his estate. Billy escapes over the wall. Later, Chen Kuan-Tai walks into town. He meets the lovely daughter of the head thug then joins the gang for dinner.I am currently watching every martial arts movie ever made in the golden age from 1967 to 1984. This movie is quite a point of history. It was filmed in Indonesia and all the actors except for Chen Kuan-Tai and Billy Chong seem to be locals. Scant information is to be found about this film. My copy is actually a widescreen digital file that was not from VHS but from original film. There are many missing frames and scratches and splices. It is very unusual to find a movie from 1978 in this format unless the original reels were actually saved and preserved like the Shaw Brothers films. How and why and by whom the original reels were saved by is a mystery plus how did it get made into a digital file as I can also find no history of any DVD release. The movie is set up to fail as a martial arts movie for the most basic of reasons. An actor with no martial arts skills can come across as a good fighter if there is also a good fighter director and good stunt men. A good martial artist cannot come across as a good fighter without good stunt men "selling the moves". These Indonesian locals are not good stunt men and the only acting they can do is over acting. Therefore, Chen Kuan-Tai and Billy Chong never had a chance. On the other hand this was Indonesia and I bet you can't name any other martial arts movie made in Indonesia in the 1970s, right? So the bar was set really low to begin. Yet overall I've seen a lot worse and I won't rate this movie any less than average for 1978. I won't lament what might have been. Chen Kuan-Tai was one of the first "real deal" martial arts actors and Billy Chong could have been Jackie Chan. A viewer who didn't know the background of these two men would never have suspected anything special about either one from watching this movie.