I was having a conversation with a friend about Hong Kong movies and it was pointed out that pretty much every actor over there is a pop star, a model, a softcore pin-up, a Wushu guy, someone from the Peking Opera, someone who slept with someone from the Peking Opera, or a Yuen Brother. And probably some combination of the above. With that kind of pedigree, it's no wonder such fabulously entertaining movies can consistently be produced by such a tiny region.

But something has been amiss lately in HK Land. During the last several years, I've noticed that the quality of action films made there hasn't been quite up to snuff. Movies like Tokyo Raiders, Enter The Eagles, and Gen-X Cops failed to engage me on the same level as past efforts did. And even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I have to admit that Blacksheep Affair was still missing something in retrospect. Lukewarm reviews for new HK flicks like China Strike Force, Martial Angels, and Jackie Chan's Accidental Spy haven't exactly raised my hopes either. I'm going to lay the blame here on the gradual Americanization of HK films. Actioneers from both sides of the Pacific have been starting to resemble each other but not exactly to the benefit of either country's movies themselves. Yeah, point to that Crouching Tiger all you want but that was just one work out of many (and it was technically from Taiwan anyhow).

So this week I've decided to kick it old school. It's time for us to go back (*cue harp playing arpeggiated whole-tone scales*).....back to 1982.....when transforming robots were all the rage amongst schoolkids and not cute monsters you had to capture & force into cockfights.....when Johnny Yune was the big Korean comedian and not Margaret Cho.....when Yuen Woo-Ping lost his mind.....what's that, you say? You don't remember Yuen Woo-Ping going crazy and making whack films? Well, it happened with the movie Miracle Fighters. Not surprisingly, this film was done in collaboration with his brothers, all talented individuals in their own right.

Opening in 1663 A.D., we meet royal guardsman Kao (Eddie Ko from Duel To The Death and Hitman In The Hand Of Buddha). It seems that Kao, who is a Manchu, got married to a woman who is a Han and that's a major no-no for someone in the Imperial forces much less the coach of the 8 Banners Army. So his superior decides to give Kao a choice: Kao can kill his wife and he'll be off the hook. He can't bring himself to do it so the superior has the wife offed anyhow. Sword and kung-fu mayhem ensue.

This is where Sorcerer Bat comes in. Played by Yuen Shun-Yi (the evilest-looking of the Yuen clan), this guy is exactly what his name implies. He knows lots of magic tricks and he is a master of the never before seen bat style kung-fu, enabling him to hang upside down from the ceiling and emit high-pitched screeches. As an employee of the royal forces, Sorcerer Bat is obligated to stop Kao. So he summons a clown in a jar ("Brandy" Yuen Chun-Yeung, probably the least known Yuen brother) to fight Kao using a paper sword. This is the first indication that you're not watching a typical kung-fu movie.

Kao somehow manages to outmaneuver the clown in the jar despite the clown's formidable fighting abilities and kidnaps the prince so that he can safely escape from the royal palace. He finally makes it as far as the beach and decides to let the prince go only to find out that he inadvertently killed the boy during the melee without realizing it. Kao then decides to take the prince's medallion with him and sets the body adrift into the sea.

14 years after, we see two magicians being awakened by some kind of Rube Goldberg-type contraption: a crotchety old man (Leung Kar Yan, who looks so much like a Chinese Quentin Tarantino, you'll plotz when you see him) and the Old Spinster (Yuen Cheung-Yan playing a woman and not Yuen Woo-Ping, as some assert). These two amazing wielders of magic spend most of their time bickering over trivial things and have divided their yard into two halves so that they don't have to be around one another all the time. On this day, they happen to be arguing over who gets to perform rituals for their deceased master first. In a nice tip of the hat, the picture of their dead master is the clear likeness of the late Yuen Siu Tien (the old master from several early Jackie Chan films and father of all the Yuens involved with this movie).

The crotchety male magician decides he's had enough of the dry weather and heads to town to cast a spell. There, a man at a shrine is praying for rain. He thinks his prayers have been answered when he feels something wet coming down on his face and is more than a bit disappointed to realize that it's actually the old magician standing on top of a building and peeing on him. I think the magician is annoyed because two people can't pray for rain at the same time but don't ask me to explain the theology behind the films of the Yuen Brothers. Predictably, the man attacks the magician with a sword and the magician catches it with his teeth and then swallows it! After tying up the praying man, the magician casts a spell by putting a glass jar with fish in it open-end down into a bowl of water. Whatever the logic is behind that, it works and the rain pours.

Now we cut to the young, aspiring kung-fu teacher Shu Gun (Yuen Yat-Chor, the handsome Yuen brother) coming home to his uncle to escape the rain. The film begins to come together as we see his uncle is the now-aged Kao, who has given Shu the prince's old medallion to wear. Through a series of happenstances, the royal army finally find Kao and mistake Shu Gun for the prince. Sorcerer Bat gets back on Kao's trail, Kao and Shu go on the run, and Shu meets the two quarreling magicians, who teach him their tricks.

That plot might not sound all that out there but believe me when I say that Miracle Fighters gets stranger at an exponential rate. This was the first in a series of collaborations between the Yuen Brothers in the early 80's that are the kung-fu comedy answer to Alejandro Jodorowsky. A man getting attacked by a flying turkey on fire...a combatant who grows extra limbs to aid himself in a fight...a guy who turns his shoe into a talking fish...it's all good because the Yuens stumbled onto something that all cult movie fans should recognize: weird sh*t is funny and entertaining. I personally feel that the veristic Surrealists were the greatest comedians of the 20th Century. Soderbergh's Schizopolis is my favorite film of all time. So the tomfoolery of the Yuen Brothers totally speaks to me. I don't know what they're saying (possibly "Don't screw with the pupils of elderly transvestites") but I like it.

The last 30 minutes of Miracle Fighters comprises some of the most thrilling stuff I've seen in a martial arts film. Not because the fights are really that great but because you're getting pounded by one wacky thing after another almost nonstop like that thing with the fake midget and the bench. And the climax is centered around a Sorcerer's Championship competition that's worth the price of the film alone. Like Drunken Wu Tang/Taoism Drunkard after it, people should see it for themselves. I'm not spoiling the fun.

Can Yuen Woo-Ping direct a bad film? So far, I don't see any evidence that he can. I hear mixed things about Buddhist Fist and Drunken Tai-Chi but I can't verify that yet. I'd also like to say that Miracle Fighters is Woo-Ping's most bizarre flick but the fact of the matter is that he also directed the Yuen Brothers' work Shaolin Drunkard (aka Wutang Master) and I wouldn't want to bet that it's any less wonky than this movie is.

Hmmmm, I suppose I need to tie my last paragraph into the first ones somehow for continuity's sake. Okay, I'll say that Hollywood should fund a Yuen Brothers reunion movie. Yat-Chor, Shun-Yi, and Chun-Yeung all haven't done a feature film since the early 90's. With Woo-Ping and Cheung-Yan doing successful, high profile work here in the USA, it couldn't be that far-fetched, could it? It'd make up for Mission: Impossible 2 and Romeo Must Die, that's for sure.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older