Spiritual Kung Fu

Spiritual Kung Fu
(1978)

Directed by Lo Wei

Starring Jackie Chan, Chih-Ping Chiang, Hsiu-yi Fang, Dean Shek, Yuen Biao

Rating: ******
              5/6

This Lo Wei comedy
Takes place in a Shaolin temple.
Jackie plays a rascal,
And gets punished the most at the temple.

He’ll be sent to the Repentance Room,
Or be forced to walk around
Carrying heavy weights and water
Till he falls onto the ground.

Once he was given a heavy brush
With which to re-create
The entire text of a single book,
In one hundred duplicates.

A stranger clad all in black
Steals a secret book
Which will make a man invincible
Once he masters what he took.

It’s an old Kung Fu manual
That had not been read in years.
Now the studious student
Can murder all his peers.

Jackie is an orphan,
And one day yet to come
Will leave the Shaolin temple,
While he is still young.

His fortunes change when a meteor
Becomes a meteorite.
It crashes near the temple
In the silent dead of night.

Five strange-looking ghosts
Appear in the library.
They cause a little mischief
Before they meet Jackie.

The meteorite shook loose the ghosts
Imprisoned in a book,
A secret book quite hidden
Behind all the other books.

This book contains the counter
To the stolen Kung Fu style
That was purloined from the temple
By a villain filled with guile.

Jackie defeats the silly ghosts,
And then convinces them
To teach him this mysterious Kung Fu style
That had been secretly hidden.

This movie is pretty funny,
The choreography very well done.
I’m giving this a rating
Of four plus one.