Crappy film

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Ta Kung (Chi Kuan Chun) is constantly put upon by bullies at the temple. So much so, the Abbot Hu Lin (Kuk Wang) wants him to learn Kung Fu. Kung is adamant in his refusal to learn it. The abuse only intensifies with the arrival of a fake monk (Cliff Ching Ching) who bullies everyone, especially Kung.Hu Lin sends Kung away from the temple for his protection. Hu Lin sends him to an old friend, Shang King (Leung Kar Yun). The Shang King family are all trained in Kung Fu. Ta Kung accepts working for the family, but not Kung Fu instructions. Shang King teaches his student without it appearing he's teaching him. It takes a while for Ta Kung to submit to actually being Shang's student. The training sessions are fun to watch. Especially the scene where Ta Kung is doing push-ups to operate a fan to cool Shang.Ta Kung encounters Meng Fei's character a few times during his stay with the Kings. Meng Fei's character's name is not mentioned (at least I never head him called by name). His master spends most of Fei's training time getting the poor kid drunk to learn Drunken Kung Fu, sometimes to the point Fei passes out.When Shang King and his family are murdered, Ta Kung becomes a student of Fei Meng's Sifu. The two work on techniques to avenge the King family. The finale fight is the bets fight of the movie.I do not understand Fei Meng being in this film. Fei Meng and his Sifu are a subplot for most of the film. They don't become important until nearly the end. It feels as if Chi Kuan Chun and Fei Meng were making movies in the same area and decided to merge them into one. Both are incredibly skilled Wuxia imho. It would have been better had Fei Meng's character not been so underdeveloped.

THE WAYS OF KUNG FU is a simple story starring former Shaw Brothers actor Chi Kuan-Chun as a young novice at the Shaolin Temple who gets kicked out when he falls foul of some evil monks. Kuan-Chun then roams the countryside before he falls in with an old master, played by an unrecognisable Beardy. Subsequent scenes involve plenty of training and encounters with the big bad who must be defeated at all costs.This is very much a typical effort with an emphasis on action scenes and routine comedy. It's very much an ordinary film lifted by the presence of the familiar faces in the cast. Kuan-Chun is a very skilled performer although he doesn't get much of a chance to shine here given that he plays a complete novice until near the end. Beardy is also underutilised although fellow kung fu star Meng Fei makes a welcome appearance.The bad guy uses a metal ring to attack his opponents in some fun moments littered with randomness. The comedy is distinctly lowbrow but works quite effectively, especially the set-piece centred around a public loo which takes toilet humour to the next level. This isn't the kind of film which is going to set the world on fire but it does its job adequately enough.

Firstly the original trailer on my Vengeance DVD calls this 'Temple of Death' but the video itself is definitely called The Ways of Kung Fu. Not mentioned by IMDb is Meng Fui and there are some cameos by the likes of Wa Mu. Who the rest of the cast is is not mentioned.This film starts off very slow and Chi Kwan Chun's character is not actually very sympathetic. The teaching by his master (the brother of his Monk teacher) played by Leung Ka Yan is not that interesting (except for a fight in the rain) and several characters are introduced whose history and role is not at all clear. The final fight is reasonable with interesting use of an iron ring by the renegade Monk. Unusually he is captured rather than killed. The Drunken Boxing scenes are rather wasted as the hero never actually seems to use that style in any of his fights. Not a bad film but could have been a lot better.

The Ways of Kung Fu is a real chop-socky movie. A temple boy gets bullied all the time, yet stubbornly refuses to learn kung fu, because he "doesn't like it". So when a villainous monk is taking over the local temple, the boy's teacher sends him away to stay with a rather hilarious family of kung fu puritans for two years. They practice kung fu all day, because "they don't have time for anything else". Eventually, the boy is forced to learn kung fu, and the last two thirds of the movie are nearly one constant fight scene. That's all the movie is about: fighting.The quality of the kung fu is decent, but not fantastic. There are a couple of kung fu fighting girls as well, and two or three masters and their students, who take on the bad guy and his henchmen. If you want fighting (and what kung fu movie fan doesn't?), this is not a bad movie. I bought this on DVD at full price, and it pretty much fulfilled my expectations of it. It has practically no story, but there are training sequences and fights and fights and more fights. A formulaic, run-of-the-mill kung fu movie, but definitely worth watching for fans of the genre. The guy in the lead is definitely not bad, and the head of the kung fu puritan family is indeed Ka-Yan Leung a.k.a. Beardy, who gives his usual good performance. The ending is very abrupt, but that's par for the course.6 out of 10.