Rating:

Aka: OCTAGON FORCE

Stars: Phoenix Chen, Chi Kuan Chun, Pai Ying

Director: Sun Young

1979, Hong Kong, Long Sun Film Co.

A woman, Madam Kao, raises a group of children and teaches them kung fu. As they grow older they start doing shows where they show their kung fu and sell medicine. One of the group, a mute girl named Phoenix (Phoenix Chen), and her classmate (Chi Kuan Chun) like to escape from training and gamble. While Phoenix's friend is gambling she meets a man. The man and his gang start harassing her as he wants to force her to marry him, but she beats them up every time. A woman later tricks the group claiming their medicine made her husband mute, so madam Kao is arrested and the troop arrives to save her but instead Phoenix gets caught.

 

It's something like that anyway.

A low budget film with bad acting and a plot that isn't too nice either. The fights are just average too.

I was sure that this movie took place during the 1800 or so but then a guy in jeans appeared leaving me confused. But what do I know, maybe there are places in China where they still use traditional clothing.

There's one scene where a guy dresses up as a girl and a guy looks at him and says: "That's strange, he's not a man and not a girl so what on earth is he?" "What do you think", says another guy, "He's a demon!" (?). That should give you a little taste of how this movie is like.

 

There's a girl here named Phoenix Chen who's a real eye opener. She's amazingly flexible and acrobatic and uses "soft bone" kung fu which originates from Yoga. She's not the best fighter but she's still a must see to be believed and is the only thing to look forward to in this movie.

The are lots of other strange characters like a drunken boxer who looks like Simon Yuen in "Drunken Master" and a guy who does a faked snake style and claims to be Jackie Chan (looks like him too).

Chi Kuan Chun acts like a real amateur, although he isn't, and his fighting is messy. Why doesn't he just pull his animal styles which look so good on screen. This one ranks with his other cheapies like "Chinese Shaolin Fist".

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